“A book between friends” reviews: Brenton Brown, by Alex Wheatle

In William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Romeo asks Mercutio: “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn.” This was true for the ill-fated Romeo & Juliet as it is for Brenton Brown and his half-sister Juliet Hylton.

Alex picks up the story of Brenton and Juliet some twenty years since their illicit love affair produced a baby: Brenton’s niece and daughter Breanna. Juliet has married a Cambridge educated financier: Carlton Hylton, and is working in local Lambeth politics. Brenton has set up his own business, and despite the changes in their personal circumstances, the one constant, as in East of Acre Lane and Brixton Rock, is Brixton itself. Alex’s affection for this south London area is unfaltering, in the chapter entitled “Exile”, one of Brenton’s spars: Everton aka Coffin Head declares “Different people may come and go but nutten change inna Brixton.”

I read this book, the final instalment in the story of Brenton Brown with much sadness and nostalgia. The pace of the events which occurs in this book and which affect the characters in immeasurable ways only adds to the beauty and beat of Alex’s highly nuanced understanding of life as a minority in contemporary Britain. The fact that Brenton and Juliet, half-siblings who have never fallen out of love with each other is, for me; not the hook which this book rests upon. For me, the book’s strength lies in its 360 degree paramount unveiling, growth and emergence of its characters. Brenton’s spars: Coffin Head, Floyd, Biscuit all remain tight and have matured into the solid brixtonians they now are in their forties. Even the minor characters such Brenton’s girlfriend Lesley is given a 360 characterisation, which explains the fury she spits at him when she realizes Brenton “can’t deal with his fucking past.” Breanna, the young girl with the insecurity issues and hang ups up about looks, about not knowing who her real father is, the untimely and shocking death of her boyfriend are capture elegantly by Alex and we see her transform from an awkward 18 year old to a woman in her mid twenties, who is more self assured and settled in her skin at the book’s end. Sean, the young lad seeking vengeance for his father’s death at the hands of Brenton twenty years earlier. Alex neatly crafts Sean’s change of heart from avenging his father’s death to a realization that he needs to change. From Breanna’s stinging accusation that he is a “wasteman” to his maturity from working under Brenton to going to college and turning his back on “road life.” All the characters including the long-suffering Carlton are given a platform in this book. They evoke strong emotions ranging from condemnation to affection to pity and grief. The pace moves so fast that the reader is almost not given much time to grieve over the loss of some of the characters, including that of Brenton at the end. As with his previous books, the pace and the emotions that Alex takes you through give you just about enough time to catch your breath and grapple with what’s happened. There’s no time to grieve however, as life moves so fast for these characters as does normal London life outside this book, that as a reader you don’t mind.

What I admire about this book also is the high importance Alex places on the intra-female relationships, between mother and daughter: Juliet and Breanna and best friends: Juliet and Tess. Most of Alex’s books centre on tales of young men and growing up in strife as a young man, his Island Stories saw a shift in focusing on how emigrating to Britain affected a small group of Jamaican women, so it was encouraging to see the intra-female relationships played out in this book. The friendship between Tess and Juliet is witty, powerful and brutally honest. Juliet has no real friends apart from Tess, and I think Tess makes up for the inherent weaknesses in Juliet’s character. Tess makes a point of proclaiming that Juliet’s marriage to Carlton is actually a smokescreen, an attempt by Juliet to assuage her guilt for her feelings for Brenton, the fact that their mother abandoned him to his fate in his early childhood and that her only daughter is a child borne out of incest.

Juliet is perhaps my least favourite character, I found her nefarious in Brixton Rock and her weaknesses jar in Brenton Brown. She feebly attempts to hold Brenton Brown back by claiming that Breanna needs his support in the aftermath of her boyfriend’s death. She gives in to Carlton at various times during the book and wastes no time in re-consummating the relationship with Brenton when she visits him in Miami. Perhaps, she was the real bug bear in Brenton’s life all these years and not the dysfunctional relationship he had with his mother or his tough upbringing in the children’s home. Perhaps, a culmination of all three, which finally convince Brenton to make a move abroad and start afresh.

The protagonist: Brenton’s demise comes as sudden as his decision to move abroad in an attempt to put some distance between him and Juliet. The “Steppin’ Volcano” as he was formerly known has been tempered with wisdom and maturity, and this is seen in his frank conversation with Sean in the chapter “Shadow of the past.” He explains what happened that terrible night when he “had got lucky,” and Terry Flynn, Brenton’s nemesis died under a tube train. Brenton’s death comes as a shock, a shock to Juliet, a shock to his spars and a shock to Carlton, who unwittingly causes his death. Brenton has grown, but in many ways the demons of his past refuse to let him grow more than he can. His relationship with Juliet, other women and his past all curtail and severely impede his ability to form stable committed relationships. It is only Sharon, the voice of reason from “East of Acre Lane” and Floyd’s wife who makes the insightful assertion that both Juliet and Brenton had a choice and that they arrogantly assumed that they “could break all the rules.” The issue of Genetic Sexual Attraction, which Alex first explored in Brixton Rock, is undoubtedly controversial. One could read the story of Brenton and his Juliet in much the same vein as Romeo and his, or one could read it as a textbook case of GSA. Despite the relationship with Juliet and the intense love affair, which picks up nearly twenty years since their first affair, it is Brenton’s humanity, which one is drawn to. As a young child beaten in a children’s home, to fearlessly making his way through life, a tense relationship with the mother who abandoned him to his early days as a Brixton bad-man, the character of Brenton Brown has now been laid to rest. At last, and in peace.

Farzana Rahman

July 2011.