All Names Have Been Changed [Kindle Edition]

Last year I read and enjoyed Claire Kilroy's Tenderwire. On the strength of this, and primed by rave reviews in the newspapers, I snapped up `All Names Have Been Changed' when it appeared. But I'm afraid that this time I was disappointed.
The novel deals with the dynamics of a group of apprentice writers constellated around a central star, writer, Patrick Glynn. Well-drawn characters are crucial to such a theme. But these characters fell flat for me. Each has a signature: gothic clothes and evident neuroses (Aisling), relentless stoicism and soft-heartedness (Faye), physical beauty and not much else (Guinevere), an unaccountable emotional obtuseness (Declan, the narrator). But a signature does not a character make. Glynn, 'the great writer' to whom everyone gravitates, is a Behanesque stereotype of a drunken Irish writer. Antonia was the only character whose breathing I could (just about) detect.
The awe and love felt by this motley crew for Glynn is reiterated time and again, but remains rather incredible.They wait around, suffering his `terrible absence'. Weeks tick by, day turns to dusk; the reader nods, starts awake, and ploughs on. On page 49 Glynn finally appears and from there the plot, such as it is, shambles forward, in scenes that alternate between melodrama and tedium.
All of this plays out against earnestly dark descriptions of 1980s Dublin. Though vivid and often vigorous, these tug against the main story, and the tale of drug-dealer Giz felt tacked-on. I suspect that Kilroy may have wished to add some grit to the Trinity College mix, fearing perhaps that otherwise it might be perceived as elitist.
At times the writing is superb and the author's skill shines through. Here's a difficult moment in the workshop: `Faye swallowed tensely, the room so quiet we heard her ligaments wrench. My eyes made the sound of the drip of a tap every time I blinked.' But at other times I wondered if Kilroy was parodying the style of `aspiring' writers. Here is Declan, straining to describe his own inability to comprehend events: `I had become a small man trapped inside a large man's suit of armour, too short to see out the eye slits'. On this, and on other occasions in the book, the author certainly seems to be taking a swipe at writers and writing, but it just wasn't funny enough to redeem the book for me.

I'm afraid All Names Have Been Changed is likely to be my biggest disappointment of the year. Claire Kilroy's two previous novels (All Summer and Tenderwire) were taut, intelligent crime based novels bursting with intrigue and character. All Names Have Been Changed is a departure, aiming pretty unambiguously for the Literary Fiction market, but falling short of the target.

The basic premise is a group of six students signing up for a course in creative writing with the great Irish writer, Patrick Glynn. Glynn himself is a parody of the drunken Irish writer, apparently an amalgam of various attributes and achievements of various Irish writers. The fun of the book, such as it is, is trying to identify which writer each factoid or quirk has been borrowed from.

And that, really, is as good as it gets. Because if Glynn's characterization is thin, that of the others is anorexic.

The story is told by Declan, a man who seems to be more fascinated by the four women in the group than he is by Glynn. Unfortunately, Declan is an outsider to the close knit group that the women form, and to which Glynn himself finds himself admitted. This puts Declan at some disadvantage, then, in conveying the different characters at play; the subtleties of the inter-relationships. Instead, all we see are single traits by which we are supposed to distinguish them (Guinevere is a Goth; Faye's husband beats her; Antonia is older; and Aisling is arty). However, the women tend to blur into one another and since there is no particular plot, none of them does anything more interesting than wander the streets of Dublin with a drunken writer. It scarcely matters that the women are so forgettable; they are not worth remembering.

This far, we have a book with little plot and little characterization. The killer blow; the icing on the cake; is that Declan, like the women, is an aspiring writer. Therefore he has to narrate in the style of an aspiring writer. Hence, we have 280 pages of turgid, overwritten, juvenile, pretentious prose. Apparently this is supposed to be humorous, and had it been a two or three page excerpt, it might have worked. But in practice, there is no difference between reading a novel written in the style of a bad writer and reading a novel that is actually written by a bad writer. And perhaps I might mention in passing that Claire Kilroy doesn't actually convince with her male voice. Each and every reference to Declan, or to Declan's masculinity, jars with a consistently female interior monologue.

Claire Kilroy is clearly a writer of some talent, based on past evidence. It is laudable that she didn't want to pigeonhole herself as a crime writer and aspired to produce something different. But unfortunately this really hasn't worked.

The story is based on an eclectic group of would be writers and is told by Declan who is one of the least able of these apprentice novelists. All attention centres around a once famously wordy author `Glynn', who has now degenerated into depths totally alien to the group and often to himself, whose needs consist mainly of the adulation of others in the group especially the women and the dark demons of drink.

Declan's relationships with the various members of the group are also significant and never fail in turn to amaze, shock and inspire you.

The author often unexpectedly dips into the seedier side of life and successfully holds you there for a few pages before gravitating back to her normal eloquent prose.

`All Names Have Been Changed' manages to fill various reading needs. In this one novel you will find drama, mystery, a compelling thriller, a wonderful romance and I am sure you will even shed a tear or two (I know I did).

All in all, a highly recommended book and if you find yourself struggling with the first 20 pages or so keep on reading ... it's worth it!