Heartland [Paperback]

In contrast to the previous reviewers I found Heartland a thoroughly engaging and sensitively written book, exposing the destructive forces an upbringing devoid of true love and betrayal by adults can have on a developing adolescent.

The book cover labels Derek Cross a 'monster', and this is perhaps misleading if some readers are expecting a tale which turns on domestic violence or abuse. There is nothing like this in the story and the publishers, not the author, should be blamed if some readers have happened upon this book with misconceptions. But Derek's impact on the life of his step-son leaves him equally as mixed-up and self-destructive as physical aggression might have done, maybe more so.

Maybe the readers find it hard to sympathise with the teenage Neil, when at his most nihilistic he takes to wearing make-up, vandalism and truancy. But just check the simple, sweet image of the child Neil on the cover and ask yourself why he has descended to this desperate level. The answer is simple: Derek.

So, perhaps the word 'monster' does befit a man who seems to screw up everyone he comes into contact with, women particularly.

Being approximately the same age as Neil and sharing his taste in music, comics and science fiction paperbacks I found it easy to empathise with him and his reminiscences of the seventies and eighties were authentic and always very readable.

This is a book about growing up, about religious faith, about bullying and feeling different, about the relationship a youth has with his peers, his parents and others who influence his life, about burgeoning sexuality, about the supernatural and about mortality in the midst of everyday life.

I can't recommend it highly enough- but be warned- it won't be what you expect it to be. Which is why I liked it so much.

If I am being honest, you don't have to read the reviews below (although they are very good), or even this review for that matter, in order to realise that all is not what it seems in this autobiographical account of our author's childhood - you only need to look at the front cover, and then turn over to the blurb, to see the possible contradictions in this story. On the one hand, on picking up the book, you come face to face with the aforementioned "lonely child": a picture of innocence, vulnerability personified. Smiling into the camera, you get the impression that although he is isolated, it is a contented isolation - far more happy to be IN "love with a monster" than to be loved by those (not) around him. On the reverse of the book, however, there is a single name that makes you question the so-called "monstrosity" of the man pictured with his step-son below. This name is Derek Cross. Not catching on? Think about it. If the man is such a "monster", why is it that our author has kept Derek's surname right up until this point? Although Neil vaguely skates around an answer towards the end of the book, once you have already asked this question, it is hard to forget that you have. It is for this reason that the three reviewers before me have debated the role Derek REALLY has had in Neil's life, and without hesitation, it should be for this reason that you should judge the book on the internal content alone.

Briefly, "When he was five Neil's mother walked out of the family home. Two years later she returned with a new man, Derek Cross. His new stepfather prided himself on being an exemplary parent: kind, patient, never too tired to read him stories. Neil loved him. Yet underneath lurked another Derek Cross - a monster, a conman, adulterer, liar, racist and cold-hearted manipulator'.

How you rate this book will largely depend on how quickly you get over your pre-conceptions of the ensuing story-line, created as a result of reading the front-cover. If you are expecting a wife-beating, alcoholic, child-abusing bully, then you will be disappointed (or perhaps, at the very least, relieved - for Neil's sake anyway). Yes, Derek does occasionally kick his dog: yes, he is guilty of a religious indoctrination that even Hitler would have been proud of: yes, he is blatantly racist in the most ironic of fashions (ironic, because he eventually leaves Neil and his mother for a Black woman) - but no, there is never a climatic point in the story where you want to "Google" Derek Cross with the intention of tracking him down to beat him in the same way that he beat his own family pets. There is just something about the story that makes you think that you have missed a chapter somewhere, the one chapter that would somehow justify the front-cover, that would somehow give the story it's true meaning. Yet with the exception of the final time that Neil sees Derek (when Derek has conned Neil's mother out of her very last penny in order to buy a car - a car bought on the pretence that they would drive back to Edinburgh in it), I never really felt anything towards Derek, other than indifference.

You may wonder "why" I have decided to give this book five stars, given that the impression is that the book doesn't live up to the expectations set by the publisher - if truth be told, it's because I knew that it wouldn't. I have only read two books by Neil Cross - "Heartland" and "Always the Sun". Yet, if there is one thing that I have learned from the six hundred pages of Neil that I have read, it is that you should never judge a book by it's cover: just as you never REALLY see any bullying in "Always the Sun", you never REALLY see the monster that is Derek Cross here. What makes this formula so successful is that it lulls you into a false sense of security - Neil has this amazing ability to change his subject matter so swiftly that it totally disorients you - one minute he can be talking about sleep-overs and then, in the next paragraph, you are suddenly at the scene of an armed robbery: in one sentence he is talking about Christmas, in the next, suicide. It is this ability to shock, to catch the reader's unaware that makes his writing so successful - truly worthy of a five-star rating.

I really enjoyed this book overall, but found the use of "monster" to describe Derek Cross a bit odd. I read the first three quarters on pins, waiting for him to be monstrous! He's unpleasant for sure... I found the Mormon aspect particularly interesting.