Close to home reading: "Putsch" by Julian Priestley

It feels like it has taken a very long time to get round to writing this review. It is bad enough that I read the book nearly a month ago; what is worse is that I had already read the book long before that. The hawk-eyed who download this book from Amazon (at a very reasonable £6.36) will perhaps notice my name in the acknowledgements as a pre-reader - ha! the identity of the mysterious Himoverthere is thus incidentally revealed! - which means the Raphael Sinclair and his accompanying cast of characters have been familiar to me for longer than most.

Perhaps my tardiness can indeed be accounted for by this. Not only is this novel by my friend, mentor and former boss, Julian Priestley, but I also feel some sort of personal stake in the project, at least by association. So whether I can be considered a completely objective reviewer is a moot point. But then, who said the scribblings on this blog were supposed to be "objective reviews" anyway? Nonetheless, what follows will be a shot at talking about Putsch as if new to, and distant from, it, not least because I plan to transplant it later as an Amazon review.

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Putsch proves the point that truth can be as strange as fiction. It must have been slightly galling for the author to see real political events mirroring, occasionally outdoing, the events described in his novel, both just before and just after publication. At the same time, it is a terrific vindication of his insight into the political mood of the times, skittish and combustible, but, as ever, and has we have seen, carried out by ambitious, calculating individuals. 

Without spoiling, Putsch is the story of a former Labour minister, Raphael Sinclair, who together with a clique of bright young ideologues recruited from Oxford, mounts an internal challenge to the leadership of his party, which is in power and which, we understand, bears a close resemblance to the doomed post-Blair regime of Gordon Brown. Sinclair was a rising star, but is now out in the cold, having resigned, a few years earlier, in opposition to the Iraq war.  His trick is to see an opportunity in the general state of political disaffection in the country, which paradoxically generates a pent up appetite for someone who can offer new ideas, new energy, and a genuine perspective for change, all to be delivered with a combination of populist fervour, rigorous organisation, smart communications and a considerable amount of raw cunning. 

Though Sinclair has clearly exhibited himself as a man of principle (the Iraq resignation), the ideology behind his bid for power is left extremely ambiguous. The array of smart youngsters he deploys as the stormtroopers of his insurgency espouse a far-left programme which makes the Labour party of the early 1980s look rather lily-livered, but Sinclair himself, though giving them license to tout their ideas up and down the country, never quite signs on to the whole package. At the end of the book, you are still wondering quite what his game is. Which is of course very much the point.


So far so political, so machiavellian. But Priestley is interested not only in the political calculations, but also in the human dynamics which both sustain and undermine them. Great attention is paid to the relationships between the characters, with personality driving the action as much as the calculation. Central to the dynamic of the Sinclair camp is sex, in his case, and in the case of several of those who follow him devotedly, gay sex. For all his strength and strategy, Sinclair's weakness for a pretty boy, and his apparent inability to be honest in his relationships, comes to seem a serious vulnerability.  Although, as he suspected  and is relieved to confirm, his sexual orientation as such is no longer an issue for the modern and (in this respect at least) enlightened British public, the nature of his relationships and the choice of his partner(s) might just be. As a result, we spend large parts of the book wondering just how and when some time bomb triggered by Sinclair's colourful lifestyle is going to explode. 

This ambiguity and contradiction in the main character is sustained and reinforced by the way Priestley chooses to tell his tale. The book is composed of short chapters, alternately relating events from the perspectives of three different characters close to the action. Although this technique does not change much from the point of the narrative - each narrator takes up the narrative at the point his or her predecessor left off - it does mean we are given subtly different views of the action, coloured by the attitudes of each narrator, as well as by their relationships with the other characters, notably Sinclair himself. 

Sir Julian Priestley

I would not wish, however, to suggest that this is some introverted exercise in literary technique. Priestley's priority is the plot, and this one really rattles along, with twists and turns holding the reader's attention from beginning to end. Given that it is available only as an e-book, a "page turner" is maybe not quite the word, but you know what I mean. This reader took one day immersed in the shenanigans of Sinclair & co. to get to the end, an end which, though itself very much an outcome, leaves you eager to know what happens next. So much so in fact that there a distinctly televisual feel to the story: the plot line and the sharp delineation of the characters are such that it is irresistibly easy to imagine this story on the small screen. In any case, I am hoping for a "series 2", the sooner the better. 

If there is ever a sequel coming, it will be interesting from another point of view too. Putsch, as already mentioned, is almost uncannily on the mark about real-world political events, with several incidents pre-figuring the real news stories of the recent past. Corbyn's rise to power in the Labour party is the first obvious parallel, but more recent events throw up yet more, from the Brexit referendum campaign debacle to all the political fallout which has occurred since, with brutal leadership contexts in both Labour and Conservative parties being played out, the latter in particular being short-circuited with God knows what behind-the-scenes skulduggery. Maybe, in Putsch 2, Priestley can offer some ideas about what happens next. In any case, it's a wonderfully open field for a political novelist - no-one else seems to have much of a clue...

Anyway, sequel or no sequel, Putsch is a great story  - of, as the subtitle has it, "principle, ambition, compromise, intrigue, threats [and] sex", and Priestley is a great storyteller. One to grace anyone's Kindle for the summer.