Fearless Storytelling

Darke by Rick Gekoski

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


'Darke' may be Rick Gekoski's first novel, but from the opening line to the last I felt as if I was in the hands of a master story-teller. This has to be because Gekoski has led a life immersed in books - as an academic, a rare book dealer and also an author of several non-fiction works - and in the process has somehow soaked up the knowledge of exactly how to go about the novelist's task.

To talk in any detail of the plot itself would give away too much. Suffice it to say, that we are in the head of one Dr James Darke, a character who shares the author's knowledge and love of books, and who appears at first to be an eccentric reclusive. No one is allowed into his house, his head, or his world. Yet he needs to eat and fix things and generally stay alive, which presents certain problems and in the process of describing them Gekoski reveals a wonderful, gentle and highly observant sense of humour. I laughed out loud, even as I began to sense that great misfortune lay behind the situation in which the protagonist finds himself. Though by the end of the book I was as far from laughing as it is possible to be.

For it is only gradually that we realise Dr Darke is a man in the midst of terrible suffering. It turns out he has lost someone he loved and blocking out the world is his coping strategy for his grief. Reality hurts too much. Exactly who he has lost and in what circumstances seeps out as Darke's memories assail him and the outside world starts to muscle its way back in. Darke tries to resist, despite the obvious fact that he is occupying a sort of living death himself and needs to move on in order to survive. The subject is grim, but Gekoski's brilliant writing sweeps us along, offering such an illuminated and wise understanding of the human psyche that I could not turn the pages fast enough.

We root for Darke, that is the other trick Gekoski pulls off. All we want is for this dear man to recover his zest for life. And this is vital, because deep into the narrative there is a bold body-blow of a revelation that demands our loyalty to Darke in order for it to have the right impact. I closed the book thinking hard about right and wrong, and I am still thinking today. We need authors like Gekoski, who can entertain us so skillfully while at the same time tackling the most difficult truths and choices that any of us will ever have to face.



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