It is 1981 and while Britain enjoys the full impact of Thatcherism, Cosmo, a young painter, and his friend Ruben, a street-wise photographer, escape to the Greek Island of Crete to indulge in alternating spells of painting, drinking, and some really Deep Hanging Out. However, things soon take a serious turn when they accidentally witness secret US military activity.

Mae'n 1981 a thra bod Prydain yn mwynhau effaith lawn Thatcheriaeth, mae Cosmo, arlunydd ifanc, a'i gyfaill Ruben, ffotograffydd strydgall, yn dianc i ynys Creta i fwynhau cyfnodau o arlunio, yfed ac ymlacio. Fodd bynnag, daw tro difrifol ar fyd, pan welant, yn ddamweiniol, ddigwyddiadau militaraidd Americanaidd cyfrinachol.

Set against the backdrop of the dying days of the Cold War, Deep Hanging Out is a Dionysian ritual featuring dissolute and solipsistic youth. Cosmo Flute and his Argentinean mate Ruben Fortuna have fled their various backgrounds to engage in a Bacchanalian romp through the mythic landscape of the island of Crete. Away from the untidy fatigue of 1981 newly Thatcherized Britain, Cosmo and Ruben spoil themselves with spells of ‘Deep Hanging Out’. Both artists in their own rights, each spends time immersed in sensual pleasure in order that they may then engage in frenzies of creative outpourings.

Soaked in a sense of place and time, Deep Hanging Out prickles with Mediterranean heat and the self-indulgence of a chosen lifestyle of privileged idleness. Yet Richard Gwyn’s Crete is not a holiday destination but a scene drenched in millennia of bloody sacrifice. His novel is riddled with the sense of danger from nuclear devastation, as the ideologies that were divided by the Iron Curtain lock horns for possibly one final confrontation. The plot thickens when Cosmo and Ruben accidentally witness American military activity on the island and are drawn into a world of ‘spooks’. This as well as a chance encounter with two rather exotic women and the story begins to take on the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

For Cosmo this means a sudden and mimetic obsession with the Cretan myth of the Minotaur, a fascination that he begins manically to represent in his painting. At the same time, he experiences an orgiastic rush of sexual fascination with one of the young women who, unknown to him, has inherited a dangerous secret. Imperial powers are provoked, regimes that crush dissidence and art with equal indifference. Crafted with all the symbolism of a Greek vase, Gwyn’s highly readable novel reaches its allegoric climax in Cosmo’s decision to run with the bulls at Pamplona where, once again, young manhood voluntarily pits itself against a brutal and primordial strength.

Stephanie Tillotson

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