Book review: The Brexit House

Today’s post is the latest in a series of occasional book reviews, but it is a new departure in that it is the first time on this blog that I have reviewed a work of fiction. So I should say upfront that I have no particular expertise in judging literary merit. Nevertheless, it seems in keeping with the purpose of this blog, with its focus on the ongoing effects of Brexit, to discuss at least some of the fiction to which it is giving rise, as well as non-fiction treatments.

For, as we might expect from so seismic an event, Brexit has already spawned a wide array of novels and ‘the Brexit novel’ has become almost a genre in its own right, with at least one postgraduate research thesis having been written on it, and no doubt more than one. And, whilst I certainly have no pretensions to be a literary critic, I have long been interested in ‘Brexit novels’ both as manifestations of Brexit and as ways of understanding it, having, for example, been delighted to have been one of the speakers at the launch of my former colleague Bob Eaglestone’s edited book, Brexit and Literature.

From that perspective, the finest of the ‘Brexit novels’ I’ve read, and which I’ve mentioned before on this blog, is Jonathan Coe’s Middle England, published in 2018 (I also reviewed it for a now defunct website, so I cannot link to it). Another excellent, though very different, example, also mentioned on this blog in the past, is Sam Byers’ Perfidious Albion (also 2018). Obviously those are both written by established, professional novelists, in Coe’s case one with a major international reputation, whereas the book reviewed here appears to be the author’s first novel. As such, it probably isn’t as accomplished as theirs, and it would be unreasonable to expect it to be, but, to my mind, it is nevertheless a subtle and erudite book, and one which discloses much about some aspects of Brexit.

Review

Winter, Julia (2023) The Brexit House. Market Harborough: Troubador Books. ISBN 978-1-803137-421 (Paperback). 340 pages. £10.99

Set at the end of August 2019, at the time when Boris Johnson was about to initiate what was eventually ruled to be the unlawful prorogation of parliament, two sisters, Cecily and Victoria, their husbands, and their children meet for a few days’ holiday. They are joined by Cecily’s friend, Diana, and her daughter. The holiday is spent at the large, ramshackle house that used to belong to the grandparents of Cecily and Victoria, and which they have inherited from their parents.

The house itself, with its extensive garden, adjacent to the cliffs and beaches of Dover, is, partly by virtue of that location, a proxy for something about Brexit. It is certainly emblematic of certain kind of middle-class, perhaps upper middle-class, Englishness, replete with photos of family members who had lived in and served the British Empire, and filled with a mish-mash of furniture, crockery, even cutlery, which are typical of families of that class. It is also, again typically, full of books. At the same time, it is in dire need of upkeep, is dirty, smelly, and, it emerges, inhabited by rats. The careful and caring depiction of the house is one of the great strengths of this book, to the extent that it is almost a character in its own right, and, of course, gives the novel its title.

The assembled party relate to this house in different ways, just as they do to Brexit. Cecily, the central character, clearly loves it, but is ashamed of some of its connotations of privilege and Empire. She and, especially, her German-Togolese husband, Florian, are also mindful of the many costly repairs it needs. These are costs they can ill-afford because, despite being highly-educated and having, in different ways, privileged backgrounds, they are not rich; they have social and cultural capital, but no financial capital. But neither of them experiences the house, for all its Englishness, as contradicting their adamant, and, in Cecily’s case, consuming and impassioned, opposition to Brexit. Indeed, for Cecily, in particular, its Englishness isn’t antithetical to the European identity Brexit has ripped from her, but an integral part of it.

Her friend Diana, visiting for the first time, also responds to the house and the history it embodies as, in some almost indefinable way, expressing English identity but, for her, it does so in a way which resonates with what led her to vote for Brexit. Yet its middle-class signifiers are wholly alien to her. She lives, it seems, a comfortable, even affluent, London life, but her origins are working class and she carries strong memories of her now-dead mother, who had bemoaned the loss of the traditional white working-class community she grew up in.

Victoria and her husband Dan are also fond of the house, and want to buy Cecily’s share of it which, being much better-off, they could afford to do. As for Brexit, they appear to have some concerns about what its effects may be on them, but seem uninterested in it one way or the other, and it’s not clear whether they voted for it or not, or even if they voted at all. They are mildly amused and mildly exasperated by Cecily’s pre-occupation with Brexit and the impending prorogation, and they do not seem to appreciate the practical and emotional implications for Florian of having to apply for ‘settled status’. That disengagement and complacency about Brexit are evidently bones of contention between the sisters, but it’s plain that this is only the latest episode in a much deeper and longer-lasting tension and rivalry between them, going back to their childhoods.

So, out of this, two main axes of conflict emerge. One, between Cecily and Diana, is mainly about Brexit, but has elements of class and education. The other, between Cecily and Victoria, is mainly about sibling rivalry, but has elements of Brexit. These two lines also intersect in Victoria’s attempts to befriend Diana at Cecily’s expense, whilst at the same time disparaging her as a suitable friend for either of them because of her lack of education. It is these conflicts which give the book its narrative power. These three characters and their relationships are not ciphers or caricatures espousing different positions about Brexit (as, I must admit, I had half-feared would be the case when I started reading the book). Rather, Brexit is interweaved with those characters and relationships, perhaps exacerbating their conflicts but not defining them.

Diana is especially well-handled in this respect. Whilst being overtly pro-Brexit, it is made scrupulously clear that she is neither a racist, nor stupid, nor ignorant, nor insensitive, nor unreflective. If anything, she comes across as having a kind of sentimental and delicate sense of England and its history. She is arguably more sympathetically drawn than the other main characters, with Cecily sometimes coming across as somewhat priggish and hectoring and Victoria as rather shallow, snobbish and materialistic. In what is clearly an anti-Brexit book by an anti-Brexit author, that is an achievement.

The book depicts the relationships and conflicts between these characters unfolding over the days they spend together in the house and surrounding area, with Dover and its cliffs again having quite different resonances for the various characters, especially Cecily and Diana. Alongside that depiction there are the ‘interior monologues’ of Cecily, Diana, and Victoria. Of these, Victoria’s is the most straightforward and contains her reflections on, especially, Cecily and their shared childhood, as well as on the other characters in the book and on her former boyfriend.

Cecily’s interior monologue has much more work to do. It mainly takes the form of her reading and reflections on that reading, mainly during sleepless nights. Much of this is concerned with the web of relationships between the English Reformation and Brexit, and it sparkles with insights – presumably, in fact, Winter’s – on these relationships, which she also links to the haphazard Protestant legacy of her childhood. Such comparisons aren’t new, of course. Even before the referendum they were made by Giles Fraser, the pro-Brexit cleric and commentator, and have been made ever since the result, both by critics of Brexit and its advocates, including Iain Duncan Smith (£). The latter was derided by the historian Simon Schama as an example of “dunces abus[ing] history in the name of their simple-minded prejudices”, and extensively critiqued by others.

However, there is a serious case discussed amongst historians (in overview by, for example, Rosamund Oates and Harry Cocks, and in their scholarly literature by, for example, Peter Marshall and Charlotte Methuen). Although using the medium of a novel rather than a scholarly article, Winter – or Cecily – certainly makes the comparison in a sophisticated way, finding the chimes and rhymes of history, rather than crude repetitions or bogus causalities, and, in the process, displays an impressive depth and breadth of reading. This encompasses John Locke, R.H. Tawney and E.P. Thompson, amongst many others, and the book finishes with a list of references to all the works mentioned.

Diana’s interior monologue consists mainly of reminiscences about her mother’s life and the erosion of the working-class community in Greenwich during her lifetime, and her forays into amateur history, which fill out our understanding of Diana’s own commitment to Brexit. It also quite nicely depicts how, whilst having learnt, as she left her working-class background behind, that some of her mother’s views are unacceptable and should not be expressed, she retains at least some sympathy for those views. At least some of that sympathy can be read as being not so much about politics as an emotional regret for having distanced herself from her mother’s life and concerns. In this way, again, Brexit is interweaved with, other, pre-existing and wider, themes in the character’s life.

There is also a subtle account, provided both by the monologues and the interactions, of the tensions within Cecily and Diana’s relationship in which both, even leaving Brexit aside, feel insecurities. For example, Cecily worries that the scruffy and dilapidated state of the old house will appall Diana, whose home is spotless and well-ordered. In fact, Diana finds it romantic and mysterious, but she worries that her ignorance about everything from the books on the shelves to the provenance of the crockery will expose her lack of education and, by extension, her social origins. At the same time, as the days progress, each becomes increasingly irritated with the other, again not just because of Brexit but because their differences begin to grate when, apparently for the first time, they have intensive contact with each other. Still, at various times they continue to see in each other qualities they admire or appreciate.

I enjoyed this book hugely, and read it at one sitting, but it has some flaws. Cecily, Diana and Victoria aside, the characters are not very well-drawn. Florian has a bit of back story, and some sense of his political views, but Dan has almost nothing. Amongst the children, Victoria’s son, Zac, with his public-school confidence and glibness, but occasional bouts of intellectual curiosity, is the most developed, although mainly only serves as a springboard for Cecily’s history lectures. Cecily’s daughter, Julia, and Diana’s, Olivia, are scarcely developed at all, and really seem to have little purpose other than to explain the friendship between their mothers which arises from the children being at school together.

The ‘interior monologues’, whilst interesting in themselves, felt contrived at times. Cecily’s just about works, by giving her the props of all the books in the house, and by virtue of her background as a PhD educated historian. Diana’s is weaker, seeming to use her mother as a mouth-piece for all kinds of ideas and arguments that the odd reference to her having been ‘an amateur historian’ was too flimsy to bear. Given the sense that Cecily’s thoughts about Brexit and the Reformation are, apparently, essentially the author’s own, they have a corresponding authenticity and coherence, whereas Diana’s thoughts about her mother are an act of invention, and feel less plausible. Tellingly, a note at the end of the book says that both the mother and, to an extent, Diana are themselves characters inspired by another fictional treatment of Brexit, David Abbott’s Dark Albion. A Requiem for the English, which perhaps explains why Diana’s inner thoughts seem, somehow, second-hand compared with those of Cecily. Victoria’s is the most successful of the three, perhaps reflecting the way that it has less narrative complexity, but, at the same time, this also makes it less significant.

Those criticisms aside, this is a skillfully-written and interesting book. It develops a thought-provoking thesis about Brexit, via the discussions of how it can be seen as at least echoing themes in the English Reformation, or perhaps folk memories of them, and it gives a humane and thoughtful account of some of the subtle social class divisions behind the Brexit vote. Its scope is confined to various gradations of middle-class Southern Englander, but that’s a very important part of the Brexit story, as Danny Dorling’s research on the geography and demography of the referendum vote shows.

Ultimately, though, the reason I think The Brexit House works as a novel is because it is not simply about Brexit but about friendship, family, and, especially, sibling relationships. Many of us with siblings will be able to recognize the way that, as depicted here, decades after childhood, such relationships can be heavily freighted, with even the smallest phrases having a power, including the power to wound, which they would not conceivably have in the mouth of anyone else. Likewise, the very different interpretations the sisters have of their shared history is a recognizable feature of many families. The implication is that, for those of us who must now perforce live together in ‘the Brexit house’, that is the Brexit story, and in that way the novel is an extended metaphor, but, in the process, it discloses much about family relationships more generally. Or, perhaps, it shows why, for so many of us, Brexit means so much more than Brexit.