Customer Reviews

Fat Lad

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fat Lad is the second novel by Glenn Patterson and portrays the history of Drew, a twentysomething from Belfast and his family in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It is written from a Protestant's perspective and set in 1990 in Belfast, when Drew returns to his hometown after an absence of eight years. Patterson manages to interweave personal and official history in a story that spans the period from the construction of the ill-fated Titanic to the resurrection of a city after 20 years of bombings and violence. Don't expect a definite account of the Troubles, the book does not and cannot do that, but it is a very interesting account of the impact of political violence on ordinary people and their struggle to find a working relationship with their families, past and identity. The way Patterson connects private and official history in a web of interwoven stories is reminiscent of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, a novel which Patterson says was very important for his perception of Northern Ireland.

Which means that I like this novel a lot. On its own, if Patterson had not surpassed it in his later efforts The International and Number 5, it'd have merited another star. But placed beside these two works, it suffers a bit by P's compulsion to stuff it full of everything he's thought of since writing his debut, Burning Your Own, with its barely teenaged protagonist. Itching now to create a grown-up character, in Fat Lad he sets out, as the acronymical title indicates, to give us the ultimate Six County statement.

My favorite parts took place in the bookstore that sets out to resist the chainstores' assault. Any booklover will find much fascinating material here as a backdrop. The characters, while engaging, seem too verbose and the plot too cluttered to truly highlight Patterson's talents, which emerge better when focussed on smaller settings and less grand ambitions. Still, for any one wanting to learn about Belfast around the later 1980s, this novel serves as its evocation and commemoration.