The Bricks That Built the Houses (Kate Tempest)

Kate Tempest

The Bricks That Built the Houses

Hotly anticipated by myself having seen Kate at Glastonbury last year deliver a truly captivating set which at times quieted the thousands in the audience so you could hear a pin drop. On grass. Or mud. This is a gripping book which is written in a style that Kate uses for lyrics (and I assume her poems although that's another step for me) wherein the descriptions of people and places have a gritty realism viewed from the gutter rather than from lofty spires. I guess you could say viewed from the street rather than penthouses or City skyscrapers. Or perversely from tower blocks rather than bijou cocktail bars. Anyways I digress with facile similes. Although it seems that this is the world that Kate knows there are some bits that make you wonder if she's been right down there and through it all. Her descriptions are full and wide in that everyone involved, and a few that aren't really, have pages dedicated to them in detail which builds up the picture without progressing the plot a great deal. It's a bit like Dickens where he spends pages on people who then fade away. He also described the hectic life of those who struggle to get a footing in life without having lived it himself. At least not to the same extent as many of his characters. Kate also gives us the life history of everyone her hero(ines) pass in the street just about. The plot thickens until it's randomly engineered climax which is where the book starts. After that we don't really get an idea of what's happened to our various friends but I guess that leaves Kate open to a sequel. Definitely would read that. At times I laughed and at times had tears in my eyes. Then there are the passages which you really don't want to know what happens but you just gotta keep on reading. The acknowledgements I guess acknowledge that Kate reached out to many friends for authenticity and to get under the skin of her characters. Gripping. Awkward. Uneasy. Insightful. Read it.

As an aside my music blog aka my memory tells me that I saw her at Glastonbury in 14 (Crows Nest when I didn't know who she was) 16 (Shangri La, somewhere I happened upon) and 17 (deliberately went to see her).

P.S. I got thinking about Dickens because I've been reading George Orwell essays. See next book blog.

P.P.S. I must admit that Orwell's essay also make me think a lot about KT's use of language especially in relation to CD.