Review: In Real Life by Chris Killen

Literary fiction is often accused of being out of touch, middle age and middle class, but over the past 18 months, a group of writers has emerged which is ready to tackle issues like austerity, disenfranchisement and the way that online interactions impact on our ‘real life’ relationships. The group includes authors like Kerry Hudson, Nikesh Shukla, Alice Furse, Zoe Pilger and Rob Doyle. Their novels are rarely driven by overt political agendas, but they are concerned with the impact of politics on the everyday: their characters have dead end jobs and lowered expectations, their living conditions are substandard, and they feel a constant pressure to present a capable and confident profile on social media. Chris Killen’s second novel, In Real Life, is another contribution to this discussion. Based around the story of a loose, ten year love triangle, In Real Life is a witty and incisive look at the lives of disillusioned twenty- and thirty-somethings.

Stylistically, In Real Life feels like quite a departure from Killen’s debut, The Bird Room. Where that novel was sparse and oblique, this feels warmer and fuller – even, whisper it, more commercial? Beneath the surface, though, Killen still has interesting things to say about the way we manage our expectations of life downwards as we approach our thirties, the soul-destroying aspects of typical post-university employment, and the pressures of managing our online identities. He also retains his deadpan humour, and his sardonic ability to convey a feeling with the minimum amount of words, as when he unfailingly appends ‘(PhD)’ to a self-help guru's name.

The novel follows three main characters, Ian, Paul and Lauren, with the narrative moving backwards and forwards from 2004 to 2014. In the early stages, the characters are on the verge of leaving university and emerging, blinking, into ‘real life’. In the present day sections, the three are introspective, looking back and taking stock of their twenties – the crap jobs, broken relationships, and the general lack of direction. Paul and Ian left university set on creative careers, Paul as a would-be author and Ian as aspiring musician. Paul has enjoyed some success as a writer, and now feels trapped by the pressure of creating a follow-up. Ian never made it, and has no idea what to do next. Now, Paul is half-heartedly teaching creative writing whilst struggling with his follow-up, while Ian has been kicked out by his girlfriend, is sleeping in his sister’s spare room, and working in a call centre. Lauren, meanwhile, lacks any sort of direction, allowing herself to be the passive partner in a series of platonic and non-platonic relationships as her twenties drift past her.

The outlook is bleak. There’s a Pulp song ambience to the surroundings. Looking around Manchester, Ian sees 'boarded-up shop fronts with bits of unimaginative graffiti sprayed on them'. His sister’s flat is even worse, from the 'winding communal staircase [which] smells of damp and takeaway dinners' to the spare bedroom: 'the kind of room you might decide to end your life in'. His employment situation is even worse. After selling his prized guitar for about a quarter of its value, and passing through a purgatorial job centre, he finds himself in a call centre managed by his sister’s appalling boyfriend.

Killen writes well about the way that call centre work changes your view of humanity – the way you notice the people at the end of the phone gradually change from being true individuals to being a series of tasks and obstacles to be overcome with set phrases, whilst also being constantly aware of your own status as an unwelcome interruption to whatever the randomly dialled person who answers your call is doing ('I'll get sworn at, on average, around ten times an hour'). This is human interaction mediated by technology, reducing the complexity of individual identity to the level of a pop-up ad.

There is more black comedy in Paul’s struggles as a novelist. Here, the solitary nature of the writer’s life is disturbed by the intrusion of technology – his concentration is shattered by the continual presence of social media, whilst news of other authors’ book deals, word counts and awards is like water torture. In one of the novel’s funniest subplots, Paul develops an obsession with Jonathan Franzen, prompted by a newspaper article about Franzen’s writing method (‘When you get home’ Paul tells himself, ‘you are going to develop a new writing method, which is where you just sit down and actually write’). He is also forced to deal with his agent’s nagging, which feeds his insecurity further: 'at their last meeting, which took place in the back room of a small pub in Soho, Paul promised his agent that he'd start a Twitter account, even though, deep down, he suspects that Twitter is for arseholes'. As his crisis deepens, and feeds into his personal life, he even sees a mugging as a relief from the need to produce a follow-up.

From all this ennui and failure, Killen manages to create an engaging, amusing and even heartwarming narrative. He creates his characters sensitively, allowing the reader to feel a spark of sympathy for each, without shying away from their flaws. In Real Life is an impressive piece of Generation Y fiction, relatable, believable and enjoyable.