In
Blackberry Wine Joanne Harris presents a novel about Jay, who is a writer. Some
years ago Jay created a character in Three Summers With Jackapple Joe, the
novel that made his name. But since then, Jay’s products have been mediocre and
his career has stalled. We meet him looking at his life, especially his
relationship with Kerry, whose own media career seems to go from strength to
strength. There is tolerance in the air, but resentment and envy are not far
from the surface.
Jay
reminisces about Joe, the ex-miner in Yorkshire who became something of a local
hero for the young writer. Back in the 1970s, when Jay Mackintosh was an
impressionable lad growing up in Yorkshire, Joe seemed so sophisticated, a much
travelled man of the world whose collection of exotics from all over the planet
facilitated the concoction of strange brews from the fruit of his plants.
Blackberry Wine is actually written from the point of view of one of Joe’s
bottles of home brew that survived for decades after its initial fizz. The
device is interesting at the start and end of the book, but for the most part
it is best ignored. It remains a good idea, but does not quite come off.
Chapters
describing Jay’s present in London and then France and his past as a child and
adolescent in Yorkshire are interleaved. Joe’s magic seemed to work those years
ago when talismans cast spells that protected Jay from local bullies. They also
seem to work when, disaffected with city life and frustrated by his continued
lack of achievement, Jay disappears to a rural French farmhouse. There,
lubricated by some of the home brew preserves, Jay finds himself haunted by old
Joe and, once again transformed, as if by magic, newly able to write.
Jay
finds that there is more than meets the eye in his little French town. The
small community is riven by family feud and accusation, alongside general
disagreement about how the area should develop in the future. Should it retain
its rural roots or appeal to the holiday trade? Perhaps displaying latent
Romanticism, Jay finds himself securely on one side of the discussion. He
negotiates his way through new relationships, some mixed with a little local
politics. Meanwhile his muse, Joe’s old wine and its associated ghost,
encourage him to write a new and successful book.
Jay’s
neighbour in France is Marise. She has a daughter, Rosa, who apparently is deaf
after an illness contracted when an infant. For some unknown reason, Marise is
determined to buy the very farmhouse that Jay himself has bought. The
competition from over the fence intrigues Jay. He is at a loss to explain how
passionately Marise appears to want his property.
Joanne
Harris’s characters are thoroughly credible. Their weaknesses are truly human
and their reserve makes their shortcomings understandable. But overall
Blackberry Wine fails to convince. Not only is the setting in which Jay finds
himself too soon accommodated by both himself and the locals, but the book
simply has too many themes. Jay’s relations with the locals could have been the
single focus of the book, but we also have his childhood, his inspiration, his
relationships with two different women, his coming of age. As a result, none of
the themes is thoroughly examined. This gives the book a lightness that aids a
skimming read, but which simultaneously undermines any real engagement with the
character. Some of the book’s themes, indeed, become submerged and apparently
forgotten, only to spring up again without warning. The novel remains, however,
a rewarding read and an interesting take on what really has the power to
motivate people to achieve. There might be an added dimension of autobiography,
but that would be another story.
