Unputdownable? A book
about salt mining? Never! I
still can’t believe that I could have been so completely gripped by a novel
which would give Zola’s Germinal a
run for its money in its grasp of technical detail. This is a complex but untricksy narrative
about absence, fatherhood and betrayal, as well as the making of a landscape on
the north-west coast of England. The
treacherous, unstable beauty of the salt marshes, shifting and collapsing as a result
of subterranean industrial erosion, is a powerfully dominant metaphor in this
haunting and subtle Bildungsroman . The young Gideon Bradshaw, brought up in
modest poverty with his mother and stepfather and painfully conscious of the
loss of his natural father, takes his first steps into adulthood and discovers the
wider world of Harkcliffe Hall. The house and estate are menaced by unseen, expanding
voids in the old salt mines while the absence of a legitimate heir similarly threatens
the survival of a once-prosperous dynasty.
Taken on as a factotum-cum-archivist
by Lady Leybourne, the present owner, Gideon’s position is ambiguous. He is asked to catalogue the family documents,
but surreptitiously exceeds his brief and learns of the sinister consequences
of the family’s salt-mining past. At the
same time he enthusiastically enjoys the remnants of the Leybournes’ past affluence;
driving a luxury car, wining and dining with the raddled and homosexual Granville,
learning from their depleted store of cultural capital. Where exactly does Gideon stand? Employee? Surrogate
son? Catamite? Held in affection or exploited? The ageing Judith Leybourne is captivating but imperious as
she insists on Gideon’s dancing with her, while Granville’s apparent gratitude
for sex swiftly turns to blackmail and murder when his plans to inherit are thwarted. The decaying family at the Hall implodes and
collapses as the void beneath their existence as well as their land rises to
the surface. Gideon is left watching in
horror and forever changed but able to feel the solid ground of his family’s
simple affection beneath his feet.
Reading Migrating Voids, I was constantly
reminded of the great nineteenth-century novels - Great Expectations in particular. Pip’s expectations were greater
than Gideon’s and he fell harder; Lady Leybourne
is not the malevolent Miss Havisham. But Joe Gargery and Jonty Bradshaw surely have something in
common. That said, Migrating Voids is by no means a dark or pessimistic book; Gideon
has a future and a family, if not a fortune.
He also has the broad skies, the shimmering stretches of water and the landscape
of the salt marshes and I hope there is a film director out there who will
recognise the visual potential of this book - Walker’s writing is wonderfully
cinematic and deserves the big screen. I'm really sorry that I can't find a way of copying the cover picture which is more beautiful than this. I love watery lndscapes. The Laugharne estuary is probably the one I know best - breathtaking and (in my view) too good for Dylan Thomas. However, that another story. Meantime, don’t wait for the film of Migrating Voids - buy the book, read it, and pass the word on!
