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Catherine Merriman has travelled a long way since her earliest published novels and short stories. Whether that distance is a reflection of the zeitgeist, a measure of the macho-isation of the Welsh novel (Niall Griffiths, John Williams, Duncan Bush, to go no further), a response to her own love of noisy two-wheeled motor transport, or a mixture of all three, it's impossible to say. What is undeniable is that in this new novel she has shed her authorial femininity with the adoption of the androgynous cloak afforded by the initials C. A., donned her cycling leathers, kicked her Kawasaki into action and embraced, among other things, nail-guns and four-letter words.
The narrator of Brotherhood is Jay, a biker with a special brain, a partner called Bethan, a wild sister, a mother who's losing her sight, and painful memories of the premature death of his father, an ambulanceman who died after inhaling lethal chemicals in a storm drain. Jay suffers from "sequencing problems", a form of dyslexia that manifests itself in chaotic spelling; there is, however, nothing wrong with his reading or his ability to reason.
The novel's opening finds Jay attending the funeral of a biker pal called Stu who has bled to death in a cellar following his wife's departure to live with Carno, a man who has grown rich on waste disposal. Carno, it so happens, is the man Jay believes responsible for his father's foray into the fatal storm drain. When Stu's twin sister Eileen persuades Jay to take her to see Carno and rakes his face with her nails, this is only the opening move in a violent chess game that features arson and grievous bodily harm and builds, unsurprisingly, to a bloody climax.
Brotherhood is a fast and furious novel whose onward momentum only (and paradoxically) slows when the biker group to which Jay belongs undertakes a trip from Breconshire to Cricieth in memory of Stu. It's a tough story, and its female characters cede nothing to its males in this respect. Carly, Jay's unpredictable and ferocious sister, is another Eileen, but one whose grudge is far more deeply seated and, in fact, years past its fester-by date.
Richard Poole
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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