Earlier this spring the BBC’s Culture Show made a special program for World Book Night to celebrate who they considered to be Britain’s best new novelists. Amongst them was Jenn Ashworth, included for her debut novel A Kind of Intimacy, a darkly comic novel with an intriguing central character, prone to misunderstandings. The panel praised Ashworth’s style and her ability to write situations that make readers unsure whether to laugh or not, such is the discomfort inherent in her sensitive subject matters. Her new novel Cold Light retains this idea of the uncomfortable in an absorbing book that straddles the border between literary fiction and thriller.
Cold Light revolves around Lola, or Laura. A twenty-something social outcast obsessed with the life and death of her childhood friend, Chloe. As schoolgirls Chloe and Lola are odd but not loners. They steal, drink, smoke and knock around together in a vividly portrayed northern town, getting drunk in parks and dealing with their respective sets of difficult parents. There is also a darker, almost sexual, side to their friendship as well, influenced by Chloe’s much older boyfriend Carl, whose major selling points to young girls are his car and willingness to pay for their mobile phones. There is also Emma, Chloe’s other best friend, whose presence irritates Lola as her own friendship with Chloe waxes and wanes.
All four central characters in the book are brilliantly drawn by an author with a good eye for people and ear for dialogue. Their respective naïve, sinister, manipulative edges give each of them a definite personality and it is always a tribute to an author when readers have visceral reactions to certain characters (as I did for the bullying Carl). Alongside Lola, Chloe, Carl and Emma there is also a good supporting cast, including parents, teachers and Daniel Wilson, described as a ‘mong’ and whose role becomes more and more important as the novel moves forward.
With a narrative that jumps between the harsh and cold winter leading up to Chloe’s death and Lola and Emma sitting on a couch years later in a grimy flat Cold Light explores the underbelly of modern Britain. Education, parenthood, madness and sex all feature as Jenn Ashworth looks beyond the front doors of northern suburban homes finding unremarkable but damaged people living on the fringes of society. It is also an exciting novel, in which we are dripfed morsels of the truth surrounding Chloe’s death but never the full, objective and undiluted story.
It is easy to build highly anticipated books up to the point that when we read them, they are a bit of a let-down (see Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis). I could not be more delighted to say that this was not the case with Cold Light. When I got to the last few pages I had that rare and wonderful feeling of not wanting it to end and being desperate to find out what happened to Chloe and Lola. This is an accomplished, enthralling novel, and comes thoroughly recommended – even if the icy cold setting did not quite fit with my reading it in brilliant sunshine!
[...] a review of Cold Light from Book Munch by Amy Pointon and another at Jamie Fewey’s blog. A very recent one at The View From Here from the wonderfully named Grace Read (bet you a Polo [...]