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The Nacullians
Welcome to the world of The Nacullians, three generations of one family, living in a brick house in a line of other brick houses. Craig Jordan-Baker's dark comedy charts the tensions and traumas of one family and their relationship with the city they inhabit.
222 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2020
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September 20, 2025
Craig Jordan Baker’s debut novel is published by époque press "an independent publisher based between Brighton, Dublin and New York. Established to promote and represent the very best in new literary talent" and is the latest book from the excellent Republic of Consciousness book club.
The Nacullians is the story of three generations of a working-class family in a southern English city, the family founded by Patrice and Nandad Nacullian, who crossed the waters from another island sometime after the Second World War, to help rebuild a country they were at best ambivalent towards, their family home, appropriately, a brick house as both Nandad and his son Bernard were bricklayers by profession.
Patrice and Nandad had four children: Niall, Betty, Shannon and Bernard. Niall died in the General Hospital when he was two hours old from a lung defect that stumped the doctors and in her sixteenth year, Betty died suddenly, from suicide. After this, only Bernard and Shannon were left, but the brick house remained the same brick house in a line of other brick houses.
And Shannon falls pregnant herself at aged 16, seduced by the owner of the local chippie in return for a free fish and chips, her son Gary the only Nacullian in the next generation.
The novel is told in short episodic chapters which jump back and forth in time, the first in page order ‘The Death of Patrice Nacullian’ (1999), but ranging chronologically from c.1954, and the story of Niall’s conception and brief life, to 2019, when Greg is 33.
The narrative style is quirky and distinctive, the narrator inserting himself as a character and admitting to the limits of his knowledge (e.g. of the exact story and timing of Niall’s birth). There is much humour in the book but pathos as well; Jordan-Baker has a genuine empathy for his characters (in which context a blurb from Rónán Hession is perfect).
That said, Jordan-Baker is also not afraid to show their darker side – Nandad’s life is made much easier when he is joined by black workmates and the racism switches away from he and his fellow Irish workers to the newcomers, and Bernard is, in later life, a casually racist drunk.
The conformity required on the building site is a lesson Bernard learns on his first day, when he commits the sin of bringing a peanut butter sandwich:
Bernard learned later that there was a subtle and sensitive sandwich grammar on all building sites. Either you were speaking the Queen's English in sandwich form, or you were speaking gibberish. Ham was fine, obviously, as was cheese. Luncheon meat or fish paste were ok too. Then you had your all-day breakfast and your Ploughman's at the higher end of the menu. And while people would always complain about the smell, egg sarnies were perfectly tolerable in sandwich grammar terms. There was though a long-standing controversy as to the status of coronation chicken. Some of the guys thought that anything savoury with raisins in it was only fit to give Portsmouth people, whereas others cited the significant meat content of the sandwich, along with its royal connotations.
All would have agreed though that peanut butter was absolutely just for kids. Jam and honey likewise. Even marmite on its own was suspect, and lemon curd would probably get you the shit kicked out of you.
The Portsmouth-bashing, endemic to the novel on the narrator’s behalf, rather giving away the unnamed city in which the novel is set.
From the first page, there seemed a definite Anna Burns vibe to the narration, although Jordan-Baker has a unique style of his own, and the devotion of a later chapter to the Nacullian’s milkwoman one assumes must be a deliberate nod:
This is a story about a milkwoman and this is most definitely a story. If at any time this story seems to impinge on reality or mirror a fact that you know to be the case, then you may take it that your narrator has failed you.
The name of the milkwoman was unimportant, and if the Nacullians didn't know her name then there's no reason you should know either.
…
When people realised they could buy their milk in the same place they bought everything else, it was like the start of a great famine for the mobile milk industry. For many decades, the mobile milk industry had been using mind control and insistent early-morning whistling to successfully keep this startlingly obvious fact from the public, but by the late 90s, the game was up.
Overall, an excellent and striking debut. 4.5 stars
The Nacullians is the story of three generations of a working-class family in a southern English city, the family founded by Patrice and Nandad Nacullian, who crossed the waters from another island sometime after the Second World War, to help rebuild a country they were at best ambivalent towards, their family home, appropriately, a brick house as both Nandad and his son Bernard were bricklayers by profession.
Patrice and Nandad had four children: Niall, Betty, Shannon and Bernard. Niall died in the General Hospital when he was two hours old from a lung defect that stumped the doctors and in her sixteenth year, Betty died suddenly, from suicide. After this, only Bernard and Shannon were left, but the brick house remained the same brick house in a line of other brick houses.
And Shannon falls pregnant herself at aged 16, seduced by the owner of the local chippie in return for a free fish and chips, her son Gary the only Nacullian in the next generation.
The novel is told in short episodic chapters which jump back and forth in time, the first in page order ‘The Death of Patrice Nacullian’ (1999), but ranging chronologically from c.1954, and the story of Niall’s conception and brief life, to 2019, when Greg is 33.
The narrative style is quirky and distinctive, the narrator inserting himself as a character and admitting to the limits of his knowledge (e.g. of the exact story and timing of Niall’s birth). There is much humour in the book but pathos as well; Jordan-Baker has a genuine empathy for his characters (in which context a blurb from Rónán Hession is perfect).
That said, Jordan-Baker is also not afraid to show their darker side – Nandad’s life is made much easier when he is joined by black workmates and the racism switches away from he and his fellow Irish workers to the newcomers, and Bernard is, in later life, a casually racist drunk.
The conformity required on the building site is a lesson Bernard learns on his first day, when he commits the sin of bringing a peanut butter sandwich:
Bernard learned later that there was a subtle and sensitive sandwich grammar on all building sites. Either you were speaking the Queen's English in sandwich form, or you were speaking gibberish. Ham was fine, obviously, as was cheese. Luncheon meat or fish paste were ok too. Then you had your all-day breakfast and your Ploughman's at the higher end of the menu. And while people would always complain about the smell, egg sarnies were perfectly tolerable in sandwich grammar terms. There was though a long-standing controversy as to the status of coronation chicken. Some of the guys thought that anything savoury with raisins in it was only fit to give Portsmouth people, whereas others cited the significant meat content of the sandwich, along with its royal connotations.
All would have agreed though that peanut butter was absolutely just for kids. Jam and honey likewise. Even marmite on its own was suspect, and lemon curd would probably get you the shit kicked out of you.
The Portsmouth-bashing, endemic to the novel on the narrator’s behalf, rather giving away the unnamed city in which the novel is set.
From the first page, there seemed a definite Anna Burns vibe to the narration, although Jordan-Baker has a unique style of his own, and the devotion of a later chapter to the Nacullian’s milkwoman one assumes must be a deliberate nod:
This is a story about a milkwoman and this is most definitely a story. If at any time this story seems to impinge on reality or mirror a fact that you know to be the case, then you may take it that your narrator has failed you.
The name of the milkwoman was unimportant, and if the Nacullians didn't know her name then there's no reason you should know either.
…
When people realised they could buy their milk in the same place they bought everything else, it was like the start of a great famine for the mobile milk industry. For many decades, the mobile milk industry had been using mind control and insistent early-morning whistling to successfully keep this startlingly obvious fact from the public, but by the late 90s, the game was up.
Overall, an excellent and striking debut. 4.5 stars
September 15, 2020
It is very difficult for a book (or a film) to make me laugh. I won’t say it’s because I lack a sense of humor but since most of the things I watch or read are generally depressing so when a crumb of humor does appear, at most, I’ll smirk.
The Nacullians was different though. I could not stop laughing. Each chapter was just made me roar or giggle. This was due to Craig Jordan-Baker’s writing style but I’ll get into that in a bit.
The plot itself is simple. The Nacullians describes the trial and (few) tribulations of a working class family living in working class area. Jordan-Baker focuses on many aspects of this type of society – gang wars, racism, toxic masculinity (obviously these are not exclusive to working class areas) and then other matters such as suicide and teenage pregnancy. All the chapters are in non chronological order so it’s up to the reader to piece together a proper timeline of this family.
However the standout of the book is the language. Craig Jordan-Baker has a way of joining odd similes, casual observations, repetitions and fourth wall breaking statements which will cause laughter. Some examples : Nandad who is proud of his three testicles and thinks it’s a sign of his masculinity when in actuality he’s suffering from testicular cancer, There’s the saga of Thunder the dog, Gary , the grandson who has a nasty accident due to a foghorn, Bernard the son, who manages to gain the upper hand on his second day at work on a construction site due to a sandwich. This is just a small spattering of the type of laughs present in The Nacullians.
Like all good comedy there is definitely an layer of pathos, this family are going through emotional problems. The chapter of the Milk Woman’s letter is such proof, or Nandad and Patrice’s ‘origins’. Craig Jordan-Baker is clever and makes sure the sad elements never dominates and adds doses of his particular brand of humor, mind you the reader still is conscious of the seriousness of most of the topics tackled in these chapters but in the process a laugh is guaranteed.
There’s also some interludes in the book, which focus on both the rural and urban areas. I found these sections to be the more poetic parts of the book, They also helped create a better understanding of The Nacullians environment.
What else can I say? The Nacullians is an absolutely fantastic book. Never have I read a novel which tickles the funnybone and manages to also create the sensation of banging your actual funnybone. What I mean is that humor and pathos are mixed superbly. The Nacullians was a treat from the start to it’s reflective conclusion.
The Nacullians was different though. I could not stop laughing. Each chapter was just made me roar or giggle. This was due to Craig Jordan-Baker’s writing style but I’ll get into that in a bit.
The plot itself is simple. The Nacullians describes the trial and (few) tribulations of a working class family living in working class area. Jordan-Baker focuses on many aspects of this type of society – gang wars, racism, toxic masculinity (obviously these are not exclusive to working class areas) and then other matters such as suicide and teenage pregnancy. All the chapters are in non chronological order so it’s up to the reader to piece together a proper timeline of this family.
However the standout of the book is the language. Craig Jordan-Baker has a way of joining odd similes, casual observations, repetitions and fourth wall breaking statements which will cause laughter. Some examples : Nandad who is proud of his three testicles and thinks it’s a sign of his masculinity when in actuality he’s suffering from testicular cancer, There’s the saga of Thunder the dog, Gary , the grandson who has a nasty accident due to a foghorn, Bernard the son, who manages to gain the upper hand on his second day at work on a construction site due to a sandwich. This is just a small spattering of the type of laughs present in The Nacullians.
Like all good comedy there is definitely an layer of pathos, this family are going through emotional problems. The chapter of the Milk Woman’s letter is such proof, or Nandad and Patrice’s ‘origins’. Craig Jordan-Baker is clever and makes sure the sad elements never dominates and adds doses of his particular brand of humor, mind you the reader still is conscious of the seriousness of most of the topics tackled in these chapters but in the process a laugh is guaranteed.
There’s also some interludes in the book, which focus on both the rural and urban areas. I found these sections to be the more poetic parts of the book, They also helped create a better understanding of The Nacullians environment.
What else can I say? The Nacullians is an absolutely fantastic book. Never have I read a novel which tickles the funnybone and manages to also create the sensation of banging your actual funnybone. What I mean is that humor and pathos are mixed superbly. The Nacullians was a treat from the start to it’s reflective conclusion.
November 21, 2020
The city in which The Nacullians takes place is never named directly, although lots of nearby places and several parts of the city are. However, it happens to be the city where I went to university, where I met my now wife (also attending the university) and where both my sons attended university, one of them twice for a BA and an MA. It is the place my wife and I choose to travel to in order to watch cricket. It is with some disappointment that I have to report that the university location (Highfield) is never mentioned, and the place in which I spent a lot of time (Portswood) is only mentioned once (”…the quiet mediocrity of Portswood”, which has definite echoes of the description of Earth in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as “mostly harmless”).
This city is a major character in The Nacullians (a bit like Glasgow is a major character in the 2020 Booker Prize winner Shuggie Bain) and several chapters are actually dedicated to the city rather than the family that is the main subject of the book. And another key component of the book is the time, or, more specifically, the culture of the time. I wonder how this book will play with non-English readers because it has a lot to say about my country’s rather poor showing in the area of race in the second half of the twentieth century and quite a bit to say about the troubles in Northern Ireland through that time.
This is the story of the Nacullian family. Well, three generations of that family, anyway. I have to acknowledge that I struggled with the first half of the book because I found much of it a bit silly, if I am honest. When the narrator tells us ”Yes, there are too many tales about dogs. This was one of them.”, I was at the point where I was agreeing and giving some thought to putting the book down and moving on. But that’s only 32 pages in and I’m glad I decided to continue because the further you get into this story, the more engaging it becomes.
The story is told in a distinctly non-chronological order. The earliest chapter is set in 1954 and the latest in 2019. But that sentence describes chapters 15 and 24 (of 24). This is clearly a very deliberate choice by the author and his reasons are maybe hinted at when the narrator says, ”time goes too fast when it’s in a straight line.” And so, the other chapters jump around in time, slowing us down and drawing us into the story of this family. Each chapter presents us with an episode in the life of the Nacullian family, sometimes as seen by an independent observer. Somehow, despite the apparently disjointed nature of the story, a clear picture emerges of the family, although, as the book itself acknowledges, ”we all know that families are impossible to see clearly, whatever we think we know about them”.
There are some other narrative tricks in play here, too. Our narrator inserts himself into the story, talking to us as readers on several occasions (I say “himself” because I am assuming the author is the narrator, but the narrator’s identity is never revealed, so it could be “herself”) and sometimes admitting to his lack of knowledge of a situation.
The blurb refers to this as a “dark comedy”. I think it’s a failing on my part, but I found the comedy to be the weakest part of the novel and I inwardly groaned rather than laughed at the “punchlines” as they, mostly rather predictably, arrived. Several times the comedy relies on repetition of a phrase in a different context and that becomes a bit obvious. That said, I liked the family portrait that gradually builds, I liked the city as a character and I liked the social commentary that inserts itself fairly subtly into the overall narrative.
3.5 stars from me and I am only rounding down at the moment because I have read some of the 4 star reviews here and I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as these people. It might actually be a 4 star book when I have had time to reflect on it properly.
This city is a major character in The Nacullians (a bit like Glasgow is a major character in the 2020 Booker Prize winner Shuggie Bain) and several chapters are actually dedicated to the city rather than the family that is the main subject of the book. And another key component of the book is the time, or, more specifically, the culture of the time. I wonder how this book will play with non-English readers because it has a lot to say about my country’s rather poor showing in the area of race in the second half of the twentieth century and quite a bit to say about the troubles in Northern Ireland through that time.
This is the story of the Nacullian family. Well, three generations of that family, anyway. I have to acknowledge that I struggled with the first half of the book because I found much of it a bit silly, if I am honest. When the narrator tells us ”Yes, there are too many tales about dogs. This was one of them.”, I was at the point where I was agreeing and giving some thought to putting the book down and moving on. But that’s only 32 pages in and I’m glad I decided to continue because the further you get into this story, the more engaging it becomes.
The story is told in a distinctly non-chronological order. The earliest chapter is set in 1954 and the latest in 2019. But that sentence describes chapters 15 and 24 (of 24). This is clearly a very deliberate choice by the author and his reasons are maybe hinted at when the narrator says, ”time goes too fast when it’s in a straight line.” And so, the other chapters jump around in time, slowing us down and drawing us into the story of this family. Each chapter presents us with an episode in the life of the Nacullian family, sometimes as seen by an independent observer. Somehow, despite the apparently disjointed nature of the story, a clear picture emerges of the family, although, as the book itself acknowledges, ”we all know that families are impossible to see clearly, whatever we think we know about them”.
There are some other narrative tricks in play here, too. Our narrator inserts himself into the story, talking to us as readers on several occasions (I say “himself” because I am assuming the author is the narrator, but the narrator’s identity is never revealed, so it could be “herself”) and sometimes admitting to his lack of knowledge of a situation.
The blurb refers to this as a “dark comedy”. I think it’s a failing on my part, but I found the comedy to be the weakest part of the novel and I inwardly groaned rather than laughed at the “punchlines” as they, mostly rather predictably, arrived. Several times the comedy relies on repetition of a phrase in a different context and that becomes a bit obvious. That said, I liked the family portrait that gradually builds, I liked the city as a character and I liked the social commentary that inserts itself fairly subtly into the overall narrative.
3.5 stars from me and I am only rounding down at the moment because I have read some of the 4 star reviews here and I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as these people. It might actually be a 4 star book when I have had time to reflect on it properly.
March 17, 2021
A thoroughly enjoyable read. Would have made a perfect holiday book if we were still able to have holidays. The narrator is an engaging character in his own right.
January 2, 2021
Pre-Mementoized Family Saga
Review of the époque press paperback edition (2020)
Occasionally I have to mementoize a book in order to be able to finish it. Author Craig Jordan-Baker subverts expectations in his novel-in-short-stories debut The Nacullians by having his first story reveal the fates of most of the Nacullian family, with then the rest of the book consisting of flashbacks (but some flash-forwards as well), in order to give you the backstories.
Once you accept the unorthodox method of laying out the timeline in The Nacullians it becomes somewhat of a mystery puzzle adventure as you gradually discover what had preceded the lives of Patrice & Nandad, their children Niall, Betty, Shannon and Bernard, and grandchild Greg in prior years and what was yet to come. There is sorrow and despair but also joy and resilience to find in their working class lives. And a lot of it contains plenty of fun and humour (although often dark) as well.
As a Canadian, it did require a bit of googling in order to understand many of the geographical references. The story mostly takes place in Southampton, England but the city itself is never named. Story interludes provide additional locale context and very specific town sites and suburbs/wards are constantly mentioned.
I thoroughly enjoyed the cut-up nature of the structure in The Nacullians and appreciated its unconventional method of presenting the epic family saga type of story. The book will likely reward re-readings as well when pieces of the greater puzzle have been somewhat filled in for you.
I read The Nacullians as the November 2020 Book of the Month perk from my support of The Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Trivia and Links
I was intrigued by the use of the word tintinnabulation in reference to the tinkling sound of empty milk bottles in a crate on page 195. Although the word came into usage as early as Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Bells (c.1848), in modern day usage it usually hints at a knowledge of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's style of tintinnabuli composition since 1976. Author Craig Jordan-Baker was kind enough to confirm that latter association via Twitter and to add that "There are loads more easter eggs for readers to find."
Review of the époque press paperback edition (2020)
Occasionally I have to mementoize a book in order to be able to finish it. Author Craig Jordan-Baker subverts expectations in his novel-in-short-stories debut The Nacullians by having his first story reveal the fates of most of the Nacullian family, with then the rest of the book consisting of flashbacks (but some flash-forwards as well), in order to give you the backstories.
Once you accept the unorthodox method of laying out the timeline in The Nacullians it becomes somewhat of a mystery puzzle adventure as you gradually discover what had preceded the lives of Patrice & Nandad, their children Niall, Betty, Shannon and Bernard, and grandchild Greg in prior years and what was yet to come. There is sorrow and despair but also joy and resilience to find in their working class lives. And a lot of it contains plenty of fun and humour (although often dark) as well.
As a Canadian, it did require a bit of googling in order to understand many of the geographical references. The story mostly takes place in Southampton, England but the city itself is never named. Story interludes provide additional locale context and very specific town sites and suburbs/wards are constantly mentioned.
I thoroughly enjoyed the cut-up nature of the structure in The Nacullians and appreciated its unconventional method of presenting the epic family saga type of story. The book will likely reward re-readings as well when pieces of the greater puzzle have been somewhat filled in for you.
I read The Nacullians as the November 2020 Book of the Month perk from my support of The Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Trivia and Links
I was intrigued by the use of the word tintinnabulation in reference to the tinkling sound of empty milk bottles in a crate on page 195. Although the word came into usage as early as Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Bells (c.1848), in modern day usage it usually hints at a knowledge of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's style of tintinnabuli composition since 1976. Author Craig Jordan-Baker was kind enough to confirm that latter association via Twitter and to add that "There are loads more easter eggs for readers to find."
February 22, 2021
I don't quite know what kind of alchemy Craig Jordan-Baker has employed in writing The Nacullians, but somehow he's managed to meld together an expansive working class family saga with a constantly surprising non-linear format driven by a genuinely fresh, funny, painfully insightful voice. It digs deep into our shared sense of - and need for - human narrative, whilst simultaneously shrugging it off and eschewing it as artifice to find something even richer underneath. It's dense with ideas and wordplay, and yet a breeze to read. Sterling craftsmanship. Highly recommend.
November 12, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s brimming with devilish good humour and I loved that sense of fun that carries throughout the book. For me it just proves that if you’ve got the reader on your side you can take them anywhere.
I liked the structure of the book, which has an episodic feel, shifting back and forth in time between the three generations of the eponymous family. There’s a lot of really loveable, colourful characters, including a dog called Thunder. The narrator’s also as much a character as the Nacullians are, as is the unnamed city they all live in — which (I think?) is Southampton.
There are five short interludes in the story, in which the narrator becomes a strange guide, exploring aspects of the city, such as its roads, parks and waterways. From the interlude on parks, (s)he says:
“For more than half the year, parks are little more than the paths that cross them or a place to let your dog have a sly shit in or to shoot up in or to die in.”
This is the kind of guide I’m looking for! A very frank narrator, a funny, fallible character with their own foibles and idiosyncrasies. There are so many funny moments in a the book. One bit I found really funny was the start of chapter twelve, when (s)he’s fumbling for a metaphor for the sea:
“The sea was like a stone. Or perhaps like a plate of vomit. No, the sea was like the head on a pint of rancid ale. No, it was like the froth in a rabid dog’s mouth. Or maybe the sea was just like the sea.”
Each metaphor is referred back to during an utterly pointless trip to the Isle of Wight. But it’s that grasping for a way of telling a story, describing characters and things, that’s interesting. It reveals more about the narrator and the angst of how to tell a story, than it does about the story.
Finally, one of my favourite parts of the story was Chapter 16, ‘A Lesson in History (1997)’. I’d love to see a good long spin-off story about Dumbledown Junior School.
I liked the structure of the book, which has an episodic feel, shifting back and forth in time between the three generations of the eponymous family. There’s a lot of really loveable, colourful characters, including a dog called Thunder. The narrator’s also as much a character as the Nacullians are, as is the unnamed city they all live in — which (I think?) is Southampton.
There are five short interludes in the story, in which the narrator becomes a strange guide, exploring aspects of the city, such as its roads, parks and waterways. From the interlude on parks, (s)he says:
“For more than half the year, parks are little more than the paths that cross them or a place to let your dog have a sly shit in or to shoot up in or to die in.”
This is the kind of guide I’m looking for! A very frank narrator, a funny, fallible character with their own foibles and idiosyncrasies. There are so many funny moments in a the book. One bit I found really funny was the start of chapter twelve, when (s)he’s fumbling for a metaphor for the sea:
“The sea was like a stone. Or perhaps like a plate of vomit. No, the sea was like the head on a pint of rancid ale. No, it was like the froth in a rabid dog’s mouth. Or maybe the sea was just like the sea.”
Each metaphor is referred back to during an utterly pointless trip to the Isle of Wight. But it’s that grasping for a way of telling a story, describing characters and things, that’s interesting. It reveals more about the narrator and the angst of how to tell a story, than it does about the story.
Finally, one of my favourite parts of the story was Chapter 16, ‘A Lesson in History (1997)’. I’d love to see a good long spin-off story about Dumbledown Junior School.
December 18, 2021
The Nacullians is a very funny novel. There are so many quotable lines – my favourite was the comparison between love and carbon monoxide poisoning – that you find yourself at the mercy of frequent and explosive bursts of laughter.
It’s also written with a deft touch. There’s narrative ingenuity in abundance and the core of the book is an often poignant exploration of family. And not just any family. The Nacullians are a family with numerous flaws and its members are not always likeable. This, perhaps, is what gives the novel its narrative pull. It’s a family to whom we can relate because we’ve all known people like them. It’s the type of novel John Kennedy Toole might have written if he’d been born in Southampton at the fag-end of the ’70s and weaned on a diet of Only Fools and Horses and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
The novel charts three generations of the Nacullian family. Written in non-chronological order, Jordan-Baker offers the reader, piecemeal, a probing insight into its pregnancies, births, deaths, growing pains, rows and affections. We become acquainted with them in all their imperfect, warts-and-all glory.
I found the enigma around the narrator intriguing and innovative. He, she or it is omniscient, observing the lives of the Nacullians over a number of years. Who or what is this narrator? There’s a suggestion that it might be the city itself. It’s a wry, often cynical voice, inhabiting the lives of the Nacullians and casting a judgemental eye upon them. Bernard is the subject of particular scorn. He’s racist and misogynistic, but I suspect the narrator’s overt disdain might actually be a bluff. The novel invites readers to delve beneath the surface of things; to see characters like Bernard not as caricatures but as living, breathing people. I was left with the impression that Bernard’s gruff exterior masked a very lonely, very troubled soul.
I’m normally a slow reader but I found myself ploughing through this in no time. There’s lots of earthy humour, a keen eye for time and place, and wonderful characterisation.
A highly recommended novel!
It’s also written with a deft touch. There’s narrative ingenuity in abundance and the core of the book is an often poignant exploration of family. And not just any family. The Nacullians are a family with numerous flaws and its members are not always likeable. This, perhaps, is what gives the novel its narrative pull. It’s a family to whom we can relate because we’ve all known people like them. It’s the type of novel John Kennedy Toole might have written if he’d been born in Southampton at the fag-end of the ’70s and weaned on a diet of Only Fools and Horses and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
The novel charts three generations of the Nacullian family. Written in non-chronological order, Jordan-Baker offers the reader, piecemeal, a probing insight into its pregnancies, births, deaths, growing pains, rows and affections. We become acquainted with them in all their imperfect, warts-and-all glory.
I found the enigma around the narrator intriguing and innovative. He, she or it is omniscient, observing the lives of the Nacullians over a number of years. Who or what is this narrator? There’s a suggestion that it might be the city itself. It’s a wry, often cynical voice, inhabiting the lives of the Nacullians and casting a judgemental eye upon them. Bernard is the subject of particular scorn. He’s racist and misogynistic, but I suspect the narrator’s overt disdain might actually be a bluff. The novel invites readers to delve beneath the surface of things; to see characters like Bernard not as caricatures but as living, breathing people. I was left with the impression that Bernard’s gruff exterior masked a very lonely, very troubled soul.
I’m normally a slow reader but I found myself ploughing through this in no time. There’s lots of earthy humour, a keen eye for time and place, and wonderful characterisation.
A highly recommended novel!
February 23, 2021
Very refreshing story telling. Kept me engaged from beginning to end and made me giggle while reading it. Through masterful characterisation, the story of three generations of the same family is told while showing a socio-cultural picture of the country. Loved it!
June 5, 2021
lovely little debut, can’t remember how i came across this but glad i did!
October 18, 2020
I had been reading a couple of really slow paced books and persevering with them had been utterly laboured... I needed a fast paced book that compelled me to keep reading, and The Nacullians could not have been a better choice!
From the opening chapter the reader is sucked into the world surrounding the Nacullians; the parks, the streets, the social politics, the families, the history, the future. This world will be recognisable to anyone who has loitered on the urban streets of working class England, and it is delivered to you, gift wrapped, by the equally familiar but simultaneously chameleon-like storytelling of the narrator. As an ex-pat from England's southeast, it was exhilarating and delightful to hear the popular slang of the times being used with such easy eloquence. And I could almost feel the clandestine soaking of the mizzle and the whir of the milk floats as I walked through the novel's housing estates and observed their public and hidden antics.
You are shown these events through a collection of stories seen from the narrator's perspective, although you are also given the freedom to disagree, and you will be transported directly into the minds of the characters so frequently that you find yourself empathising with them against your own will. You are also left with the impression that under the phlegmatic recountal, the narrator does too. Each chapter reads like a short story- a snapshot in a much larger timeline- leading you to feel that the novel doesn't really begin with the Nacullians, or end with them either. The novel leaves us to ponder this, and ponder I did... for many days after finishing it.
When I first started reading this book, I didn't really know what to expect. What I got was compelling, convincing, poignant, unsettling, heart-warming, absorbing, challenging, beautifully crafted, exquisitely imagined, and told with such insight and mirth that I laughed out my tea into my peanut butter and lettuce sandwich.
Highly recommend.
From the opening chapter the reader is sucked into the world surrounding the Nacullians; the parks, the streets, the social politics, the families, the history, the future. This world will be recognisable to anyone who has loitered on the urban streets of working class England, and it is delivered to you, gift wrapped, by the equally familiar but simultaneously chameleon-like storytelling of the narrator. As an ex-pat from England's southeast, it was exhilarating and delightful to hear the popular slang of the times being used with such easy eloquence. And I could almost feel the clandestine soaking of the mizzle and the whir of the milk floats as I walked through the novel's housing estates and observed their public and hidden antics.
You are shown these events through a collection of stories seen from the narrator's perspective, although you are also given the freedom to disagree, and you will be transported directly into the minds of the characters so frequently that you find yourself empathising with them against your own will. You are also left with the impression that under the phlegmatic recountal, the narrator does too. Each chapter reads like a short story- a snapshot in a much larger timeline- leading you to feel that the novel doesn't really begin with the Nacullians, or end with them either. The novel leaves us to ponder this, and ponder I did... for many days after finishing it.
When I first started reading this book, I didn't really know what to expect. What I got was compelling, convincing, poignant, unsettling, heart-warming, absorbing, challenging, beautifully crafted, exquisitely imagined, and told with such insight and mirth that I laughed out my tea into my peanut butter and lettuce sandwich.
Highly recommend.
February 28, 2021
It would have been easy and somewhat expected to tell this story of a working class family as dark and depressing. Instead it is a playful, full of (black) humour storytelling.
September 29, 2020
Black humour and a very solicitous narrator made this an entertaining read
September 10, 2020
This volume of literary fiction makes for a funny, entertaining, but sometimes painful, read. The unnamed narrator observes, with both laser precision and a playful poetic eye, the banalities and absurdities of everyday life, as well as moments of extreme violence and occasional tenderness. Three generations of the same family rub along together in the same house out of necessity and habit, rather than desire. The book follows their everyday lives, small dreams and scant loves. The narrator, by turns jittery and ramshackle, then cool and controlled, holds the book together, chatting obliquely into the reader’s ear as he examines the stupidity and ridiculousness of humans - their unwritten rules, their inability to communicate directly, their brutishness - but he does this with affection, humour and a brilliantly developed sense of observation. Craig Jordan-Baker is a new literary voice with a light, wry and self-effacing touch.
September 11, 2020
Meet the Nacullians, three generations of one family living under the same roof on an estate in the east of a southern city. The family began with Patrice and Nandad Nacullian who crossed the water from another island sometime after the Second World War. They had four children, Niall, Betty, Shannon and Bernard who we follow through their trials and tribulations.
The reader flicks though the Nacullians family album while listening to the narrator who makes sure to remind them that they are here for the family. From the outside they appear to be your average, normal functioning family yet we all know far too well that appearances can be deceiving. Each member is troubled with their own inner demons that feed off the despair and misery that lives within the walls of the house. It’s dark, intense and dramatic reading.
The themes portrayed throughout the narrative are distorted and gritty showing the family’s misfortunes. We also witness their passive relationship with the city they live in as the narrator gives the reader interludes about the surrounding area. It’s intriguing to discover and pulls you in to this twisted, disturbing world that surrounds The Nacullians.
The narrative handles suicidal thoughts and racial slurs raw and explicitly. There is also a lot of racial and profane language used throughout and has the potential to cause offence to some readers. However Jordan-Baker has used it within reason and it only strengthens the reality and harshness of the Nacullians’ story. They have not had an easy lot in life. The Nacullians have suffered. At only two hours old Niall died from a lung defect in hospital. Betty kills herself when she is sixteen and Nandad dies from cancer leaving Patrice, Bernard, Shannon and Greg in the brick house on Harefield estate. It strips back to the darker side of reality. The side we all force ourselves to subdue and pretend to be ignorant of. But there’s no escaping that here as Jordan-Baker presents you the Nacullians family way of life, trapping you in the brick house as you bear witness to their tale of woe.
The imposing, impending gloom of the 21st century stalks the characters throughout the narrative. The fear of the unknown and what the new century will bring to the family is inevitable. The fear that nothing is ever going to get better. There is a strong sense of never-ending torment as the characters drag themselves through the daily grind of everyday life. Bernard starts to become racially and physically abusive. Shannon gets pregnant by a married man and brings up her son, Greg alone while Patrice has had enough and longs for death. Their inner demons and past mistakes continue to weigh them down, making it unbearable to witness at times. However you can’t tear yourself away. The family gets under you skin and you’re desperate to disocver their fate.
I give The Nacullians By Craig Jordan-Baker a Five out of Five paw rating.
Gritty, explicit and eye-opening, from the moment you begin reading you are hooked. The Nacullians are not your average, normal family, but then what family is and what is exactly normal these days?
The reader flicks though the Nacullians family album while listening to the narrator who makes sure to remind them that they are here for the family. From the outside they appear to be your average, normal functioning family yet we all know far too well that appearances can be deceiving. Each member is troubled with their own inner demons that feed off the despair and misery that lives within the walls of the house. It’s dark, intense and dramatic reading.
The themes portrayed throughout the narrative are distorted and gritty showing the family’s misfortunes. We also witness their passive relationship with the city they live in as the narrator gives the reader interludes about the surrounding area. It’s intriguing to discover and pulls you in to this twisted, disturbing world that surrounds The Nacullians.
The narrative handles suicidal thoughts and racial slurs raw and explicitly. There is also a lot of racial and profane language used throughout and has the potential to cause offence to some readers. However Jordan-Baker has used it within reason and it only strengthens the reality and harshness of the Nacullians’ story. They have not had an easy lot in life. The Nacullians have suffered. At only two hours old Niall died from a lung defect in hospital. Betty kills herself when she is sixteen and Nandad dies from cancer leaving Patrice, Bernard, Shannon and Greg in the brick house on Harefield estate. It strips back to the darker side of reality. The side we all force ourselves to subdue and pretend to be ignorant of. But there’s no escaping that here as Jordan-Baker presents you the Nacullians family way of life, trapping you in the brick house as you bear witness to their tale of woe.
The imposing, impending gloom of the 21st century stalks the characters throughout the narrative. The fear of the unknown and what the new century will bring to the family is inevitable. The fear that nothing is ever going to get better. There is a strong sense of never-ending torment as the characters drag themselves through the daily grind of everyday life. Bernard starts to become racially and physically abusive. Shannon gets pregnant by a married man and brings up her son, Greg alone while Patrice has had enough and longs for death. Their inner demons and past mistakes continue to weigh them down, making it unbearable to witness at times. However you can’t tear yourself away. The family gets under you skin and you’re desperate to disocver their fate.
I give The Nacullians By Craig Jordan-Baker a Five out of Five paw rating.
Gritty, explicit and eye-opening, from the moment you begin reading you are hooked. The Nacullians are not your average, normal family, but then what family is and what is exactly normal these days?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2022
Mice is Mice! Mice Mice is Mice!! Mice.
Five Mice!
Five Mice!
December 21, 2020
I found this funny, harrowing, lighthearted and somber all within pages of each other. I laughed out loud at clever jokes but was also traumatized by a too close portrayal to my own family dynamics. Jordan-Baker has captured a realistic and yet fantastic portrayal of a family, a town, a life. A great read
December 15, 2020
A true storm in a tea-cup. Sprawling in scope and bursting with heart, the tiny world the titular family inhabits feels so much larger than just bricks and cobblestones. A perfect read to distract from the shitheap of 2020, and a marvellous read for the years to come. What a debut!
July 31, 2021
Highly recommend - really quirky and distinctive writing style. Genuinely funny and quite poignant in places. Very clever plot. Strikes a good balance emotionally as well as being an easy, but thought provoking read.
June 12, 2022
This a a LOT of fun. Written with a definite style and voice - there is no passive narrator in this book - it's a wonderful story of Southampton's no-so-finest at their far-from-best. The tales are told with an unvarnished truth, but with no cruelty or moral judgement. This family is as this family is. Funny, awful, resilient, lazy. Highly recommended.
November 9, 2025
I’m growing a bad tendency of thinking of ratings as I read books. But the Nacullians as a family I think incapsulate a 4/5, as do many great working class families. But the book became a 5 when I stopped thinking about it and let the city take me. Horrible enough to make a good story but not horrible enough to make the news, the characters of the Nacullians are written with passion, pettiness and laughter, as the narrator becomes the city, lurching over the flux of the everyday. Excellently hilarious, I have never laughed more than I do with Jordan-Baker and Pratchett — a sort of wit I aspire to achieve. And I’m sure, as my own cairn of books implies, I need a lot more reading to reach such skill. My writings a bit dead when I stop reading. But, as if my destiny, the satirist from the city over filled my boots with excitement to read and to write. I am not only grateful for Craig as a lecturer but a future colleague and, god, I’m glad his writing wasn’t shit! Imagine being inspiring by some dickhead from Southhampton?
Jordan-baker is someone I admire from the to-be streets of Greater Portsmouth.
I had a lot more analysis about plot and specific chapters but I’m tired and should be doing my essays.
Jordan-baker is someone I admire from the to-be streets of Greater Portsmouth.
I had a lot more analysis about plot and specific chapters but I’m tired and should be doing my essays.
September 27, 2024
I absolutely loved this book! The Nacullians is a darkly comic novel made up of vignettes following one family - The Nacullians - living in a brick house on an English council estate. The timeline dances around from the 1950s up until the present day. It is non-linear, like the nature of memory, and inherited memory.
Craig Jordan-Baker’s writing style is beautiful and poetic - it is a wonderful book to read aloud, as his use of language is a delight for the tongue. The narrator is a character in itself, and is wry, witty and naughty - he constantly plays with the reader, suggesting things we are probably expecting from a novel, and then cheekily reminding us that those things aren’t going to happen in a novel like this. I found myself often grinning and shaking my head at the delightful audacity of the narrator at many points in the novel.
He presents his characters as colourful, flawed beings, and clearly has a great affection for them (and so do we, in turn), without ever allowing us to become sentimental - Jordan-Baker stops us from going that far often with a brutally honest, familial-feeling remark about them, delivered with both hilarious wit and pathos. The narrator blends the drudgery (and sometimes bleakness) of these characters’ everyday lives with absurd and sometimes even surreal comedy. The novel also includes background characters, such as the milkwoman and the next door neighbour, giving life to those secondary characters in our lives - including also the local parks, roads and the landscape itself.
The novel, for me, seems to both celebrate and critique the nature of storytelling and its unreliability - the human tendency to filter things through a particular lens in order to create a story that is pleasing and satisfying to a reader. As mentioned previously, this novel is non-linear and eccentric in its structure, and really successfully plays with the idea of how a story “should” be structured in conventional novels, and how that affects our perception of events. It talks about the limitations of representation - be it a drawn map of a city (“maps are shallow, flattering things”) or storytelling itself.
The book uses the motif of bricks and walls throughout. It made me think of how the “walls” of our own lives are made up of these small moments, and these different characters, and how the family memories, stories and even inherited trauma that we share are like the mortar that holds it all together. The wall is a combination of the past and present, and “seeing into time is a muddy thing”. Like all families, the Nacullians are sometimes horrible, yet loveable, relatable and sympathetic. The narrator always wants to remind us that these are real people with real lives, and all this happened to just one family in just one house on one street of many other brick houses.
Craig Jordan-Baker’s writing style is beautiful and poetic - it is a wonderful book to read aloud, as his use of language is a delight for the tongue. The narrator is a character in itself, and is wry, witty and naughty - he constantly plays with the reader, suggesting things we are probably expecting from a novel, and then cheekily reminding us that those things aren’t going to happen in a novel like this. I found myself often grinning and shaking my head at the delightful audacity of the narrator at many points in the novel.
He presents his characters as colourful, flawed beings, and clearly has a great affection for them (and so do we, in turn), without ever allowing us to become sentimental - Jordan-Baker stops us from going that far often with a brutally honest, familial-feeling remark about them, delivered with both hilarious wit and pathos. The narrator blends the drudgery (and sometimes bleakness) of these characters’ everyday lives with absurd and sometimes even surreal comedy. The novel also includes background characters, such as the milkwoman and the next door neighbour, giving life to those secondary characters in our lives - including also the local parks, roads and the landscape itself.
The novel, for me, seems to both celebrate and critique the nature of storytelling and its unreliability - the human tendency to filter things through a particular lens in order to create a story that is pleasing and satisfying to a reader. As mentioned previously, this novel is non-linear and eccentric in its structure, and really successfully plays with the idea of how a story “should” be structured in conventional novels, and how that affects our perception of events. It talks about the limitations of representation - be it a drawn map of a city (“maps are shallow, flattering things”) or storytelling itself.
The book uses the motif of bricks and walls throughout. It made me think of how the “walls” of our own lives are made up of these small moments, and these different characters, and how the family memories, stories and even inherited trauma that we share are like the mortar that holds it all together. The wall is a combination of the past and present, and “seeing into time is a muddy thing”. Like all families, the Nacullians are sometimes horrible, yet loveable, relatable and sympathetic. The narrator always wants to remind us that these are real people with real lives, and all this happened to just one family in just one house on one street of many other brick houses.
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