Review: The Gospel According to Cain - Courttia Newland

Courttia Newland’s seventh novel, The Gospel According to Cain, explores the relationship between a young man who seemingly has no past, and a middle-aged woman who cannot escape from hers. Beverly Cottrell, the narrator, had her comfortable life irrevocably derailed by the theft of her baby from a parked car, whilst in the negligent care of its father. Two decades on, a disturbing presence enters her life: Wills, a sullen, troubled young man who claims to be her son. This confrontation is the starting point for an emotionally raw discussion of identity and belonging.

Newland has written extensively for the stage, and the set-up of this novel is reminiscent of the claustrophobic domestic power-struggles found in Pinter’s plays. Whether he is her son or not, Wills is a brooding, accusatory figure who takes up residence in Beverley’s home, his presence immediately disturbing the balance of her relationships with friends, neighbours and relatives.

Beverly is a socially ambiguous character. Wealthy enough not to have to work, she runs an evening class in creative writing for at-risk youths in her local area; although she forms a close, motherly bond with her students, and is capable of inspiring them, her vocabulary and manner of speech separates her from them. Likewise, she is not an entirely comfortable member of the middle classes; at school, she felt poorer than her classmates, and she is emotionally distant from her sister Jackie, an academic. Her psyche is mirrored by her surroundings. She is close to the markets of Holland Park, where she can browse the organic produce, ‘admiring the peacocks and rabbits’, but she has to walk home through streets where she has heard ‘stories of people being shot for asking the young not to smoke in a public place’.

Subconsciously, the guilt she feels at the loss of her son seems to manifest itself as a deeper feeling of guilt at her ‘privilege’. In her dreams, she returns to the slave colonies of nineteenth century Barbados, where her family ‘sells products of slavery to plantation owners’. After the reappearance of her ‘son’, who she knows has enjoyed none of the advantages she could have provided for him, she begins to see these reminders in her waking life too, in symbols like the logo of a rum bottle, ‘a tan table depicting dark men, fields…’ In her class, she asks her kids to confront their past and the society they inhabit, but she struggles to face up to the same questions in her own life. As she becomes more emotionally committed to Wills, she senses that she may be abandoning the kids who look up to her, further heightening this sense of betrayal.

Wills is similarly complex. In a one-on-one situation with Beverly, he is by turns sullen and needy, manipulating her and playing up her hope of redemption – such is her desire to accept him, she rejects advice to get a DNA test. In more social situations he struggles. His friend, Vicky, tells Beverly that Wills has tried to make something of himself (‘he used to put on events, like rap and poetry nights, positive stuff’), but feels as trapped by the past as his ‘mother’ is: ‘he got into the Black shit… Panthers an Malcolm an all that. Trouble with Black shit is once you got the knowledge you gotta deal wiv the fact you can’t leave’.

Language plays an important role in the novel. While Beverly and the kids from her class have a very different manner of speech, there are efforts on both sides to bridge the gap; the kids open up emotionally, while Beverly playfully uses street slang from time to time. However, the divisive qualities of discourse are illustrated in the confrontation between Wills and Beverly’s family. Her sister Jackie, and brother-in-law Frank, come to the flat while she is out, trying to cow Wills with their academic language and passive-aggressive psychologising. Lacking the tools to fight back on their terms, Wills reverts to the language of the streets. Neither side understanding the conventions of what is being expressed, the argument flares out of control: ‘Wills did say he’d slap her, he admitted, but it was an idle threat. Frank jumped up and tried to manhandle him, perhaps in an attempt to defend his wife’s honour. Wills went into the kitchen, got the big knife, and emerged, pointing it at them. They got up pretty damn quick after that’. His sense of latent violence is picked up by the kids Beverly teaches, who instantly distrust him: ‘you shouldn’t let strange youts in yuh gates, miss… Man’s dodgy’.

As Wills’ presence in Beverly’s life threatens to become permanent, she experiences a loss of agency. While she is self-supporting, and has the economic means to manage her life as she sees fit, her decisions are questioned by those around her, from the counsellor she sees for her anxiety to her family and even her students, who all feel a sense of ownership over her. At the novel’s climax, a series of violent confrontations occur in her own home, in which the participants disregard her presence entirely. It is clear that this black woman’s life is seen as community property, and she is not seen as being capable of acting in her own best interests.

There are flaws in The Gospel According to Cane; for an epistolary novel, there are a few too many literary flourishes, as Beverly meditates on the act of writing itself, and intersperses her narrative with dictionary definitions of pain. Also, while the author can’t be blamed for this, I feel the book is very poorly served by its cover and accompanying blurb, which give the impression that this is a bog-standard piece of misery-lit rather than the visceral exploration of race, identity and power contained within. If I hadn’t known the author’s name I certainly wouldn’t have considered reading it based on first impressions, which would have been a huge shame.

These issues are outweighed by the book’s strengths though; the characterisation is extremely strong, and the narrative has a powerfully dramatic arc. Newland resists easy conclusions, and balances complex themes skilfully without a sense that the action is being manipulated by a need to make points. The momentum of the story means this is a novel to be read quickly and reflected on at length; as with Pinter, there is an unsettling quality to the novel that lingers in the memory.