Climbers

Rereading this after a number of years I'm struck by the power of Harrison's writing. This novel is rooted in the crags and landscape of the North. The band of climbers he describes (by his own admission amalgams of people he knew when he himself took up the sport) feel real and he has a knack for capturing the mundanity of overheard casual conversations.

It's his most mainstream novel, yet retains that air of otherworldliness, in the descriptions of empty rooms, rainswept streets, the raw weather of the northern countryside. It's a shame, in a way, that he didn't write more in this vein, but then his other works are just as good in their own genres.

Harrison remains one of my favourite authors, and long may he continue to document the weird.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
A haunting novel by a very underrated author. You don't have to be interested in rock climbing (I'm certainly not) to ‘get' this book. It is superbly written by Harrison and follows the protagonist, Mike, over a year as he meets and climbs with a motley band of rock climbers.

There are flashbacks to scenes from his life - a failed marriage, first meetings with the climbers - as well as superbly descriptive passages on the minutiae of everyday life in dull provincial towns with their soulless housing estates and grim little lives.

Harrison is very good at capturing that very British air of quite desperation, of lives trapped in amber. This is some of his best writing and I'd recommend it readily.