First Novel

After a series of books about English Literature degrees, here is one that opens the lid on creative writing courses from acclaimed creative writing tutor and writer Nicholas Royle. First Novel is many things, one of those things it isn't, is nice about the pomposity of writing. It supposes that writers, beset on all sides by their own sense of failure, are not nice people.

When we meet creative writing tutor Paul Kinder, he is dismantling a Kindle, almost in a metaphor for the e-books versus printed books debate. Mostly Paul wants to know, how do you put it back together again. Paul spends a lot of his time revelling in the small amount of acclaim he's had in the past, fetishising his press clippings and staring off into the distance at imagine scenarios of his changing the world.

We get a split narrative of one of Paul's student's works, a highly conceptual and 'award-winning' construct involving an injured war pilot and his attempts to triumph over adversity. Also, once Paul's sense of self-worth is set up, the split narrative juxtaposes the work of his lessers and betters with his own failings as a human being, from the breakdown of his marriage to his obsessive inability to get on with his life. Slowly, a darker plot involving murder most horrid emerges.

There is much to enjoy here. It is funny, full of hilarious and awful observations about writing and writers and as a piece of meta-fiction about the very nature of fiction, an enjoyable ride through the processes constituting the all-important debut novel.