sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Stories; FIC 290000
October 2004
176 pages
ISBN 0-88984-257-4
$16.95
Summat Else
Royston Tester
A most remarkable series of linked stories, encompassing a young
working-class Englishman's coming of age, written with great humour and pathos.
This is Royston Tester's first book, but he has already
been nominated for a slew of awards, been published widely (and internationally, in both
journals and the Lambda-prize finalist anthology The Love That Dare Not Speak
Its Name: Essays on Queer Sexuality and Desire), and charmed the CanLit
establishment. His writing is very English, and in a spectacular way; his language
is both elegant and colloquial, and always riveting.
Summat Else, Royston Tester's debut collection
of short fiction, sketches the life and times of Enoch Jones,
too clever and too queer to be a working-class lad from Birmingham,
the polluted heart of England's `Black Country'.
In these linked stories, Tester gives us unforgettable glimpses of Enoch's youth, introducing
him first as the adopted son of a family of `caravan runts', then
as a juvenile delinquent in an animal kingdom of doddering majors
and simpering pigeon-fanciers, all blind to their own grotesquerie.
Enoch escapes, `eighteen and out of England', to the brutality of Spain during Franco's final
months, where he turns tricks in hostels while dodging riots, gunfire and marriage. Eventually,
the story circles back on itself, and Tester burrows into the murk
of Enoch's genesis: an industrial landscape populated with teenage factory
girls, holy joes, virgins in ditches, and, ringing throughout, disembodied
voices `like someone reading the Lord's Prayer backward all the time,
or shouting directions in Latin from inside a bowl of porridge.'
Summat else indeed.
`Over the 13 linked stories comprising this debut collection from Birmingham,
England-born, Toronto resident Royston Tester, our protagonist, Enoch, is clubbed
with one revelation after another: his father's illiteracy, his own nascent and
tumultuous sexuality, his long-kept-secret adoption. That he maintains his sharp wit
and gentle self-deprecatory sense of humour throughout might seem an almost
superhuman feat, yet it comes off as entirely natural rendered in Tester's
quippy, idiomatic prose. The worlds of these stories refuse to sag under the weight of
hardship. Instead, Tester's evident affection for his subject acts as a buoy, imparting
even the grimmest scenes with a beguiling lightness.' `By the above descriptions, Summat Else may begin to sound like a
sordid, sensational series of stories about pain and suffering -- a
too-young mother in a cold world, a juvenile delinquent boy, and
troubled, rough, gay sex. It is this and more, thanks to Tester's
knife-edged imagination, and his great skill, which craft humanity and
humour in the grimmest of situations. Tester weaves politics, morality,
pain, and humour into a complex and moving book. His narrative
prose -- syntax, dialogue, and phrasing--is quirky, fresh, surprising,
idiomatic, and inventive. Listening to the characters talk is engaging,
entertaining, and often gripping.
Tester's skill with character and situation, whether in the dark
or in the light, whether occupying the high ground or the gutter,
compels the reader to engage; Tester evokes our emotions -- apprehension,
empathy, and more. Royston Tester makes us care. Read him.' `In these connected stories, narrator Enoch Jones guides the reader through his
coming-of-age with a cockeyed charm that makes both the English Black Country
and the bloodthirsty Barcelona of Franco's final days feel as real as one's
own kitchen. With a novella's momentum, each story plunges us headlong into the
next hair-raising stage of Enoch's life -- Evensong pickpocket, reform school
punching-bag, apprentice rent-boy -- culminating in an epistolary tale with a
cliffhanger ending that, somehow, completely satisfies. Tester's structural
craftsmanship alone is dizzying, but it is Enoch's strength of character in
the face of fascist gunfire, S & M dog collars and a pederast driving
instructor, among other things, that ultimately makes this collection so
winning. (And the paper it's printed on is really nice.)' `Tester has written Summat Else with a starkness that allows the
reader to fully understand the depths of Enoch Jones and his pain. The
characters in Enoch's life are as real to the reader as they are to him.
And one wonders, just how does life turn out for Enoch Jones.' `These deftly-compacted stories tracking Enoch Jones from babyhood into his
20th year are sprinkled with mischief and wit. The writer's prose is smooth
as polished stone. Lust is ever present, Birmingham's grittiness no less so. The
collection as a whole mirrors the moon's arc and the sun's ascent. This
is lively, exciting work. Summat Else is a fine book.' `Like a skilful photographer, Tester makes visible the normally invisible
moment when the soul shatters. He is a master of implosion.' `He brings an inquisitive and cosmopolitan eye to his art, layering the observations
of the informed world traveler with poignant, sometimes hilarious scenes in which
a character's past suddenly invades the present, creating personal upheaval and unexpected
resolution.' `The writing is stripped and clean and so spare it almost shines. The dialogue
sparkles. [...] Its seeming simplicity must have been hard won. Tester
captures the gritty detail of England's Black Country with an evocative faithfulness
which is convincing and extremely moving.' `If you're an average Canadian reader, it might be a couple of weeks
from the time you put down Summat Else before you fully appreciate its beauty.'
-- Stewart Cole, Quill & Quire
-- Steven Ross Smith, Prairie Fire
-- Adam Lewis Schroeder, THIS magazine
-- Robert LeBlanc, the Ultimate Hallucination
-- Leon Rooke
-- J.S. Porter
-- Richard Cumyn
--John Metcalf
-- Linda M Bayley, Canadian Book Review Annual
