
by Rebecca Lowe
The Crazy Truth is a working-class novel that remains true to its roots – unflinchingly honest to the point of brutal, yet also touching, funny, human and ultimately uplifting.
It tells the story of Girlo Wolf, born in 1984 into a world of pickets and poverty. Struggling with her mental health and the backlash of childhood trauma she falls into a dark underworld of sex, drugs and alcohol. Driven by the stories of home, she finds freedom in writing and strives to become a poet, discovering that her words are a route to recovery and survivorhood. Spanning four decades, Girlo’s story is interwoven with those of her mother and grandmother, making this a powerful tribute to the intergenerational struggles of working-class people.
In this, her debut novel, Swansea-based author Gemma June Howell draws on her lived experiences to present a raw, authentic coming-of-age story. The narrative is non-linear, bouncing about through alternating timelines and perspectives, echoing the chaotic inner dialogue of Girlo herself. Opening mid-action, the first chapter begins with Girlo at the end of an alcohol-fuelled night, waking up in a police cell, barefoot and confused: ‘Where the fuck wuz she?’
It’s a fitting introduction and sets the scene for the rest of the book – Girlo’s life alternating between manic, buzzed-out energy and burned-out exhaustion. This is no easy read. Howell’s prose is fierce, furious and heartfelt. There’s a pounding urgency that runs through the book like a helter-skelter, together with a visceral imagery which doesn’t flinch from bodily fluids and graphic descriptions. It’s not for the faint-hearted.
That said, it’s one heck of a journey. Along the way we meet three generations of working-class women – Girlo herself, abused and mistreated by the men in her life, her mother Crystal, living a chaotic lifestyle where her vulnerability is taken advantage of by a succession of men, and finally Granny Pearl, who looks after Girlo when it becomes increasingly clear that Girlo’s own other isn’t up to the job.
Redemption via socialism and feminism
What lifts the novel beyond just being a rip-roaring story is its ultimate message of redemption, framed within a socialist and feminist perspective. The character of Girlo refuses to be confined by others’ expectations of her – a realisation that’s evident both in her breaking away from the men who have tried to do so, and also in her self-discovery as a poet. When she breaks, finally, from Earl, a man from a different social background to herself, she realises how quickly she has become subsumed into his identity: ‘He couldn’t keep up with her. She didn’t feel at home in herself, let alone with him. He’d modified her to his specification. With him, she wasn’t human.’
Similarly, she refuses to be constrained as a writer: ‘It wasn’t that she couldn’t write, just that she was made to feel like she didn’t have the right to. She’d gone to a comprehensive school with its limited curriculum designed to prepare its pupils for ‘useful’ work. Writing was for the elite’. To me, this has echoes of Marx’s theory of working-class struggle – the fight to break through the confines of class barriers and centuries of patriarchal conditioning, to recognise that working class voices have not just a right – but a need – to be heard:
‘Did she have the capacity, ability, mental agility, the vocabulary even, to convey her thoughts in a way that was publishable? Was she ready to expose herself? What would happen if she dug that box up out of her?’
Interspersed with the narrative, throughout the book, are Girlo’s poems, written into the shapes of the objects or ideas that consume her attention – a doll, a bottle of vodka, a penis, a gun. The poems offer a dialogue with the prose. Through them, we see the writer’s inner thoughts, often developing through in real time. It’s an unusual technique, and not one I’ve seen before, but definitely added to my enjoyment of the book. A standout for me is ‘Warman’, a poem I immediately fell in love with when I first heard it performed live by the author, and which beautifully and powerfully sums up every woman’s rage at being treated as sexual object, dead-eyed trophy or predator’s plaything.
Also notable is the dialogue, much of which is written in the local Valleys dialect. As someone who is more than familiar with this part of the world, I found it easy to follow, but it might prove distracting to some. Personally, I felt it added realism and authenticity.
How to sum up this book? How do you sum up a life, in print? Much like the woman whose story it tells, it is complex, multi-layered, a combination of the facets of life experiences, both good and bad, a tough shell concealing a huge heart, all underlain by a steely grit, a determination not to be anyone’s victim but to rise up, shouting.
It feels like the start of something. A clarion call, perhaps. Perhaps it gives us all permission to be something more than the boxes people try to put us into. To – as the writer says, in a kind of manifesto – ‘take life by the scruff of the neck, live it to its fullest and write not from an ivory tower but from your sacred fount. From life itself.’
The Crazy Truth by Gemma June Howell is available from Seren Books, priced £9.99.