‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’
JKW speaking to Nicola Monaghan
Nottingham has received some bad publicity of late, largely thanks to some dubious statistics made by ‘Reform’ in May 2006. The report was leapt on by the media and provided some fanciful headlines such as ‘crime capital of the UK’, ‘the most violent place in Britain’ and ‘Assassination City.’ This was unfair; particularly as Home Office figures showed that the number of recorded homicides per head of the population in Nottinghamshire for 2003/4 was only fractionally above the national average whilst still lower than nine other areas. Drawing from the same statistics, Nottingham had less than half the number of recorded firearm offences than in Merseyside. This figure has since dropped dramatically, largely thanks to increased investment and education campaigns and most importantly because the press has since found newer, brighter, scapegoats.
Whether Nottingham is more violent than any other city is immaterial. What matters is how individuals caught in a poverty trap survive, as this is a narrative faced by thousands of people in every inner city area across Britain. With this in mind I met up with novelist Nicola Monaghan to discuss her debut novel The Killing Jar. Interestingly, Monaghan has not been averse to the odd skinhead in her past and so strikes as cutting a figure in the flesh as her raw gritty narrative does on the page. My first question then was whether she had been doing a Britney or simply saving money at the barbers.
‘In fact, it was after seeing photos of me that Britney went for the clippers! I love all this fuss about what she’s done, this assumption that to have shaved off her hair, she must be slightly mad. I think people are quite threatened by a woman with a shaved head. I got all sorts of reactions. All the best people I know loved it, but I did get whispers, and even pointing and shouting in the street. I got asked several times if I was a lesbian. It’s so liberating not to have to wash or blow dry your hair. And to not have to pay ladies salon prices to get it cut…’
The Killing Jar is set towards the east of the city and is an utterly compelling and depressing narrative of life on a council estate in one of Nottingham’s worst boroughs. This is an alternative, truer and bleaker version of the same kind of chaotic lifestyles glamorised by Paul Abbott’s Shameless and has all the elements which underpin the underclass thesis; drugs, abuse, broken families, violence, fatalism, poor education and housing. The notion of an underclass can be traced right back to the writings of Karl Marx and his famous description of the ‘lumpen proletariat.’ Marx saw this ‘reserve army’ of illiterate and unemployed workers as ‘the scum of the deprived elements of all classes’ and had little sympathy for those who were too disorganised and ignorant to achieve class consciousness, thereby creating and perpetuating their own conditions of existence.
Since then the concept of an ‘underclass’ has dominated political discourse relating to poverty, the most notable being Charles Murray’s seminal works in 1990 and 1994 which led to dramatic changes in American home policy and attitudes towards the poor. At one extreme the underclass thesis is seen as a structural problem, a result of failing government policy and an unfair economic capitalist system which creates great inequalities which are beyond the control of those affected. At the other end of the spectrum the problem is deemed behavioural. An underclass are culturally impoverished as well as economically impoverished which leads to crime, unemployment and ‘negative’ life choices which perpetuate the situation. This has most recently found form in the Chav stereotype. In the novel Monaghan presents both sides of the argument through the eyes of Kerrie-Ann.
Kerrie-Ann is the daughter of a smack addicted prostitute, sent out to peddle drugs outside her school by one of her mother’s numerous ‘uncles.’ Structurally her future is already mapped out for her in those formative years. There seems to be little hope of escape. Monaghan never over plays this and captures the situation perfectly through a series of innocent childlike observations, such as when she asks if her half caste brother is this colour because her mam shot ‘brown’ (heroin) whilst pregnant.
Kerrie-Ann will cause much consternation among readers. On one level she is truly detestable, creating her own misery. On the other she is relatively innocent, manipulated by those around her and a victim of circumstance. This indifference works well, offering the kind of complexity required to understand such situations and is a refreshing change to more formulaic narratives which tend to simplify the world into binary opposites of good and evil.
The idea for the novel came to Nicola partly whilst studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent and when she was stood at the bus stop outside Strelley Co-op, co-incidentally where her novel ends. Rather than being struck by the perceived depressing mise-en-scene ‘I was struck by the vibrancy around me. There were teenagers hanging out and messing with each other, blokes on mini-motos, cars stopping and holding up traffic while the owners chatted. I’m sure these scenes could have been intimidating if I didn’t know the estate so well, but to me there was something beautiful about them. I remember thinking; If I can capture this, that would be a novel.’
Monaghan was born in Radford on a road parallel to Raleigh Street and so is proudly entering the turf so eloquently turned by Alan Sillitoe. She has also lived in Basford, Broxtowe, Top Valley (twice), Bilborough and Aspley and so has performed the necessary ‘method writing’ required to write on the subject. Indeed, she modestly jokes ‘if I ever get really famous, that blue plaque making company will be setting up a factory somewhere near here to cope with the demand. I live in Aspley again now, as it goes. It’s close to my family and I know lots of people here. I like it.’
Clearly Monaghan has the necessary credentials to offer advice on how life can be improved for people living on estates and so I put the question to her. Politicians take note. ‘I think this has to be led from within. There’s no point official agencies sending in youth workers and counsellors and so on without reference to what people want. On the smaller estates, like Broxtowe, there’s quite a sense of community and people know what they want. What they definitely don’t want is outsiders coming in and telling them how to live. Boredom is half the problem, that and lack of parenting. There are 15 year old dads who spend their days on the estate riding round on bikes. They are proud dads and they try to be good dads, but they’re just kids. If there were other options for them along the way, the chance to earn a bit of cash and live just a little before settling down, that would help. An education system that had some relevance to them would help too. I think there are places that would be better with very small community schools that worked with the city’s colleges to provide something more personal and tailored to individual needs. Schools just seem to get bigger and bigger, and it’s all the wrong way around. There are lots of good people on the council estates in this city and if these communities can be empowered in the right way, I have lots of hope for them.’
A strong stable family behind you is arguably one of the most important elements in escaping a chaotic lifestyle, something which Nicola benefitted from. ‘I remember being about four and my uncle asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I gave a typical little girl’s answer that I wanted to be a nurse. My dad’s ears pricked up and he interjected ‘If you want to go into medicine you can be a doctor.’ That’s the kind of stuff that makes you who you are.’
The title of the book is not a reference to the Siouxsie and the Banshees classic but to a device used by Kerrie-Ann’s neighbour, entomologist Mrs. Ivanovich, to preserve butterflies in toxic liquid. It is also a metaphor for the estate she lives on and the characters who are entrapped there predominantly through drugs - a self indulgent and just as effective toxic to their hopes of development. Towards the end of the book Kerrie-Ann escapes her killing jar existence by hoping on a bus and heading into the sunset in much the same way that Victorian novels have their heroines escaping the country on a boat. This is often because a solution cannot be found within the narrative and seems to be the only plausible escape. I wondered if Nicola was trying to escape similar circumstances when she embarked on her financial grand tour which saw her work in New York, Paris and Chicago before returning home.
‘I was definitely trying to escape in a way. Not Nottingham, as such, but certainly the poverty I experienced as a child. I was very ambitious then and competitive. I wanted to have everything. I don’t supposed that’s changed that much, it’s just my ‘everything’ that I’ve redefined over the years.’
And as for the Kerrie-Anns’ who have been left behind? ‘There are plenty of people live like Kerrie-Ann does. There’s a number of people very close to me who’ve been there and come through this kind of lifestyle. And there are others who haven’t, in Wilford Hill and Bulwell Cemeteries. It’s probably the latter bunch that made me want to write this, though it wasn’t that conscious at the time.’
Despite the content of the novel, Monaghan’s life seems positively blissful now particularly as she recently got married to an old childhood flame through the Friends Reunited website - which like Nottingham - has received its fair share of horror stories over the years. She is now known as Mrs. Valentine, an awfully modest gesture on her part after just establishing her name in the publishing world. But this has nothing to do with subservience. ‘Valentine isn’t my husband’s original surname either, but an old family middle name. We decided we would both change our names and when this one came up in discussion, we were both into it. It would make a great surname for a writer, wouldn’t it? If only I’d got published after I got married…’ She will be retaining Monaghan for future publications.
She also has the pleasure of spending her days in more relaxing surroundings, taking advantage of the new Nottingham Writers’ studio where the bouncers exact a strict dress code. ‘It’s strictly white tie, except on naked Thursdays. I’ve been renting an office there for six months or so now and I’m really loving it. It’s wonderful to be able to ‘go to work’ as a writer. I’m rubbish at home. I just surf the web and drink tea. Both of these activities are available to me at the writers centre too, but there’s something about sitting at a desk surrounded by my books that helps me take the work more seriously. That, and knowing Jon’s upstairs typing away and making so much beauty happen. There’s something very cool about being able to break for a cup of tea with a Booker Prize nominee.’ If Nicola continues to write with her current intensity then there is a good chance that Jon McGregor may find himself returning the compliment.
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