The Bookies Runner by
Brendan Gisby
The Bookie’s Runner
It’s not that I doubted the reviews. People whose opinion I respect have
raved about this book. It’s not that I doubted Brendan’s talent – in one week
I’ve consumed his short stories and family saga and been deeply moved by both.
It’s just that I couldn’t begin to imagine what one could write about
such an ordinary dad. Brendan admits it, more than once ‘he was just my dad.’
Not a hero. Not unusual in any obvious way, ‘just my dad.’ So I found it hard
to imagine what could make any book on the subject as good as people have said
about it. That’s why I didn’t read it sooner. I should have. I started
reading. I was choked by paragraph 2. Lesson 2 learned. It’s not just what he
writes about it’s how he writes. It’s brave, honest, open, poignant and
compelling
By Chapter Two I already knew I had to give this my full and undivided
attention – and expect to cry. And I don’t do crying. Especially not about
fathers. Having long since had mine abandon me, I tend not to think that
fathers can be heroes.
But this is Brendan’s story, not mine. And a fifteen year old Brendan
narrates his thoughts on the longest bus journey on earth – his first day back
at High School after the death of his father. Each chapter is another story in
the course of his dad’s life and it works so well because the adult holds
himself in the background, while offering a subtle awareness of the depths
beyond the boy’s immediate grief. He shares the reflexive stance of the reader
and draws our empathy not only to the boy but to the man the boy became.
It is man and boy telling the story.
The 15 year old feels raw emotion and unbridled hatred for a world which
has treated his dad so unfairly and everyone (including himself) who has ever
wronged his dad are the target of his furious grief. The tribute to the
adult is that he has channelled this into a story which is a true tribute to
his father.
F.Scott Fitzgerald said ‘write because you have something to say, not
because you want to say something. Gisby wants to say something – boy and
man – but he also HAS something to say. Something very important about human
relationships and interaction. About truth and lies and trust and failure and
love.
The boy experiences hopelessness and vows never to be as gentle and soft
as his dad.
‘Who can you trust?’ is his dad’s poignant question and Gisby learns
that you can’t trust anyone –except your dad. And without him, you have nothing
left. I empathise with that feeling.
Structurally the work is understated but very clever. One doesn’t find
out the full symbolic importance of the bus journey until well into the book
and it hits one as yet another sideswipe. You want to go and wring the neck of
the woman who cheats them at their gardening job. You want to hunt down the
Bookie who cheats them (I hope this isn’t too much of a spoiler) It isn’t
though because the episodes themselves, well written, remembered with the
rawness of real emotion, are the stepping stones towards the greatness of the
story which is a picture of how ‘ordinary’ people become what they are.
The hopelessness. The fierce determination not to be cheated or lied to or
tramped on are vivid and real. After finishing this I have the deepest respect
for Brendan Gisby. I mourn for the boy he was and the dad he lost and I hope that
he got the life he deserved. He certainly deserves the utmost respect for being
able to tell this story with the power of pain and vividness of emotion and yet
all of that is controlled, constructed and managed with a level of reflective
awareness that is little short of incredible.
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