Jeff Torrington
This is a loosely-connected series of stories set in the Centaur car plant somewhere in northern England. We are immersed into the world of that factory: the assembly line is the widow; management level are collectively the Martians, and I never figured out exactly what Zombieland is, but it’s where particularly boring work is done.
The antics on the production floor are fascinating, but it’s a planet to itself. The Martians are on another planet, and spouses are there to be taken for granted in the few free hours away from work. In part there’s a delight in the subversive humour of the factory floor, the colourful characters and repartee. But the same sardonic narrative voice goes on to describe petty thieving, suicide, and a mental breakdown. The laughs become uncomfortable laughs. There are no hearts of gold here. There may be a message here about the dehumanising effects of capitalist society, but the narrative voice is too fatalistic to have belief things can be better.
Read on …
This is a voice that rarely reaches the bookshelves. Without looking at the author’s bio, you just know it’s based on personal experience – not just a few months of the daily grind, but years and years. This is a cynicism and wit which has developed to cope with a life sentence on the factory floor.
His prose too is a tool that he has developed for his purpose. It’s a magical mixture of defiant wit, rather awkwardly-constructed sentences, and shopfloor slang. Hammered to perfection overt decades, but not glossed.
Valancourt The Viaduct reissue
.
Irish Times Q+A