THE NORTHERN CLEMENCY by Philip Hensher

(N0VEL)

The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

597 pages.

The Northern Clemency, narrated by Carole Boyd (Clipper Audio, US, 2008).

Unabridged. 22 compact discs (approximately 25.5 hours)

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

In 1974, at the beginning of the Thatcher era, the Sellers family moves to a home in Sheffield, across the street from the Glovers, a family in crisis. Neither family is entirely “normal” (if there is such a thing), but the Glovers are definitely dysfunctional.  As the Sellers family is moving in, Malcolm Glover has walked out on his family and his wife Katherine stomps her son Tim’s pet snake to death on the sidewalk in a fit of anger.

The Northern Clemency is an example of what is sometimes called a “sprawling novel.” The story takes place over three decades. Most of the action occurs in Sheffield, an industrial city, but Hensher takes some of his characters to London and Australia. As we watch the daily struggles and interrelationships of the two families and their neighbors and friends, the news seems to be playing in the background: we see how some of them are impacted by the economic and political struggles of the time (in particular, the coal miners’ strike of 1984).

The book is well-plotted and readable, but quite long. Had I been reading the book instead of listening to the CDs, I suspect I would have been annoyed by the surfeit of details and minor characters.

The Northern Clemency was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, given each year to a novel published in English, written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, and published in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, it got some rather mediocre reviews.