Mistaken [Hardcover]

Neil Jordan is of course better known as a filmmaker, but I sometimes wonder whether he shouldn't receive more credit as a writer. Similar themes appear in both his films and books - coming to an accommodation with the past and with oneself, flawed characters carrying deep secrets, with a hint of supernatural or mysticism perhaps in there - but the material definitely seems to be given a more serious and credible examination in his novels, and - most importantly - it seems to touch on more personal subject matter.

Mistaken is a fine example of Jordan's writing, one that draws on the past, on childhood experiences, on growing up in Dublin in the 1960s, but it's one that, crucially, takes a distanced perspective, as if in awareness of the act of writing inevitably means creating a fiction of one's life. This is very much evident in the book's central conceit, where a young boy named Kevin Thunder, from a modest north Dublin working-class background feels that the has been living in the shadow of another person, a boy who looks exactly like him, Gerry Spain, but who has a more privileged southside upbringing. Being mistaken for someone else initially proves to be an annoyance to Kevin, but it also has its advantages, particularly when it comes to picking up the discarded girlfriends of his double. Inevitably however, the question of understanding one's true identity comes into question, both for Kevin and Gerry, as each of them come to wonder whether there isn't a third person that they have created between them.

That's very much a writer's conceit that has a number of well-known literary precedents from Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe to Dostoevsky - several of which are acknowledged in Mistaken - but inevitably, it's given more of a postmodernist spin here (which isn't exactly new either) on the question of identity and the role of the author. As such, home-grown literary giants such as Joyce and Stoker cast a long shadow over the two boys - quite literally in the case Kevin Thunder who grows up in the house next door to where Bram Stoker lived, and is haunted throughout by the shadow of his vampire creation - the division of those influences reflecting the split in the personality of two boys, made one perhaps in the author himself.

Such self-reflexive musings are interesting, but they do not become the overriding purpose of Mistaken, and Jordan finds a way to bring his own unique character to the writing with some beautiful childhood reminiscences of life in Dublin in the sixties (most of the chapter titles refer to Dublin locations). The Neil Jordan touches are there also in the obsessive dwelling on the past, memory, two halves seeking a whole and the skilful way he teases those elements out through an almost supernatural twist. Opening with a funeral, Mistake is also about Death in wider sense - the death of parents and a generation which nonetheless leave ghosts of a past that still haunt and direct the course of our lives.

Despite the clear personal input, the literary nature of the book does perhaps prevent the characters from fully coming to life, but that shouldn't be seen as a criticism, since the whole purpose of Mistaken is to examine "the inadequacies of fiction" in its creation of characters and in the dangerous pursuit of dreaming of another life. Nonetheless, the novel is beautifully written, wonderfully rich in imagery and observations, but also consistent and persuasive in its worldview and, ultimately, despite itself, even quite touching.

After finding the first hundred pages hard going in places I enjoyed this book very much. It is a poetic, meditative account of growing up and ageing, the choices we make and those that are made for us and how things might have turned out if either had been different. The book's central idea of the narrator and his double often being mistaken for each other is well developed and ingeniously used to illustrate what Jordan is trying to say about how lives develop, and the later part of the book has a very gripping story.

Neil Jordan has the ability to pick out those few details which capture a scene or an atmosphere perfectly. For example, the narrator as a boy in the early 60s catches a bus thus: "...I ran, jumped on to the tailboard, grabbed the rail and climbed the stairs to the upper deck. The cigarette smoke was thick, the windows dripping with condensation...", which really struck a chord with me. I am sure other readers will find flashes of their own past brought vividly to life in the same way, and it is one of the great strengths of the book.

I found the events and characters very well-drawn and believable, and Jordan also tells a very good involving story which I found quite heartbreaking in places. My only criticism of this book is that in the first hundred or so pages the fractured, occasionally confusing timescale and the extremely leisurely pace did begin to pall, and I thought the poetic language and descriptions occasionally spilled over into self-indulgence. However, the latter two-thirds of the book are really impressive and enjoyable, and have left me with powerful images and plenty to think about. It's a very rewarding book and even if you find the opening a struggle it is well worth persevering with.

When I saw the blurb for this I thought that it sounded intriguing, so thus ordered it to give it a go. I think it must be about five or six years since Neil Jordan last had a book out so it is nice to see something new from him.

Meet Kevin Thunder, he is attending a funeral of someone he once knew well. At the funeral he meets the deceased's daughter, Emily, and it is through this that the memories and confessions come flooding back. Growing up next door to the former house of Bram Stoker, Kevin leads a rather normal life, but then he starts to find that he gets mistaken for someone else, and thus he eventually meets Gerald Spain. Both live opposite sides of Dublin, but there is an uncanny resemblance between them. From childhood onwards they find that they can walk in and out of each other's lives and be the other. Keeping this a secret, very few people know the truth, with disastrous results.

With their secrets and identical resemblance this becomes a tale that grows on you, and makes you wonder what identity really means. Quite slowly paced this is something that I think you will either love or loathe.