Reviews of Underdogs by Louise Powell – a powerful debut with plenty of northern spirit | Fiction

Tneighboring villages Easington and Easington Colliery in the coalfields east of Durham form an excellent case study of the transition from the industrial age in England to decline. Twenty miles from a major town or city, they have been left to suffer since Thatcher’s war with the companies that created them. If you want to understand why white workers feel left out today, visit Easington Colliery and the surrounding villages.

It is in this area that Middlesbrough-born author Louise Powell made her living in the world’s most powerful sport of greyhound racing, or “flapping”. Underdogs is a true picture of England that has not been accepted, but is still alive. Pigeon lofts and flat hats, meat raffles and social clubs – all still exist, usually in 21st century literature.

Ten-year-old George Wheatley and his broken-hearted father Reg, both grieving the death of George’s mother, who died two years ago, are attracted to the dog’s character by Bertie, a kind-hearted miner, who despite “half a pint of black phlegm he exhaled from his lungs every morning” thinks he does not want to profit from illegal money. bookmakers chasing his dogs. When the bookies refuse to take Bertie’s bets he binds the lucky ones to chase his dogs, and gives his prostitute Goldie, “nineteen pounds of muscles round like springs… Many of those on the menu have benefited from Bertie’s attention.

The love that George feels for Goldie is matched by his need to survive in the unstable old world where the biggest threat comes from the disillusioned book writer Baz, who has plans for their precious canine tree. Powell is very powerful in describing the details of railroad life, the seemingly simple pursuits offered at the edge of the glittering darkness and the changing hands of large sums of money and the more complex with the support of graceful creatures that are bred and disposed of for public pleasure and profit.

That this book was launched in 1998 is important; All the boreholes in County Durham had been closed, but big regeneration money was on the way from common lad Tony Blair, with his talk of “local organisations” and “business”. The old slag heaps soon became natural resources and monuments. A bright new future was promised, though not yet visible; Today Easington has one of the highest white populations in the country (currently 98.4%), and was the area most affected by the 2025 disability pay cut.

Here, there is a difficult life centered around family ties and power struggles in the dying days of the analogue world, where the scars received from the police brutality in Orgreave are displayed and shared, and where premature death walks the noisy streets. George and Reg seem kind and quietly strong; the father’s grief for his lost wife is overwhelming at times, as are reminders of George’s malnutrition. This is the real poverty of the world, as it is today. During the Second World War, British fascist William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw, said that “the people of Easington will be eating greyhounds, not raising them”; he greatly underestimated how much the English love their dogs, and it is not surprising that Powell’s description of greyhound food is more understandable than anything father and son eat.

Northeast writers of fiction have always had a lot to sing about, but not much in the way of support from the publishing industry; “Too dark” and “to the north” are words familiar to many of us from this region. Given the rich nature of folktales and folk songs, which are often told in folktales, this still feels like an oversight. With recent books by Eliza Clark, Glen James Brown, Jessica Andrews and Lucy Rose all in their favour, it’s clear that there are endless Englands. And as Underdogs so movingly demonstrates, it’s the untold stories that deserve to be on the web — now more than ever.

Benjamin Myers’ latest book is Jesus Christ Kinski (Bloomsbury).