Karen Campbell’s previous novel Paper Cup tackled homelessness and mental health and it resonated with so many readers, particularly those whose lives have been touched by both. Her latest, This Bright Life, is set in Glasgow and also focuses on individuals all too rarely represented in fiction. SNACK spoke to Karen Campbell to learn more.
Can you give a synopsis of This Bright Life?
Gerard is twelve, a bright kid, but trouble always seems to follow him. He struggles with a difficult home life, and doesn’t always make good decisions. One morning he makes a terrible one, upending not just his world, but the lives of elderly widow Margaret and newly divorced Claire, who witnesses what happens. Three strangers are brought together in one moment – and nothing is ever the same again.
Over one summer, we see the impact of Gerard’s actions on Margaret, Margaret’s growing connection with Claire, and how Gerard himself gets swallowed up in the system – and has to learn to stay afloat.
Why was this a story you wanted to tell?
I’m always interested in writing about facades – what we see on the surface, and what’s going on inside – whether that’s a place, a person or a situation. Gerard’s written off as ‘troubled’. But every kid who kicks off in class, or is in bother with the police, will have a story behind that. So I wanted to spend time with one imagined wee boy, and move beyond the surface. I also wanted to look at resilience. In how good folk abound, and how quiet voices and gentle hands can work away in the background, trying to weave a net. But we tend not to celebrate these folk.
Social workers only make the headlines if they fail. Foster carers receive a pittance, yet open up their homes to some other family’s problems. Drug-addicted mums who struggle can love their kids and hate themselves at the same time. People who witness crime and step in to help, even if it’s only giving a statement to police – they’re brave. They’ve decided to reach into another person’s life. What I really wanted to write about was community. About how we’re all woven into the fabric of something bigger than ourselves – even if we choose not to get involved.
There’s a quote from Alan Riach on Hugh MacDiarmid at the beginning, and a few uses of words I recognise from MacDiarmid’s distinctive poetry. What is his relationship to this novel?
I think it’s this idea that we only have one life, and we have to try, despite the many adversities we meet, to make it matter. Of course, the fact Gerard is a wee boy means he has so much less agency and autonomy. He’s buffeted by events and people he can’t control. But as the novel progresses, even Gerard begins to think more deeply about the choices he can make within the restrictions of his own wee life.
The city of Glasgow is a key component. Why did you want to set events there, and specifically the two areas of Dennistoun and Shawlands/Strathbungo?
Dennistoun because it’s an area of the city I didn’t know well, until my daughter moved there. But of course, the east end is where Glaschu began, and it’s rich in history and community, so it lent itself really well to being a location where you have a mix of folk living cheek by jowl. There’s bookies and charity shops next to chi-chi cafes and bold new builds. Strathbungo was a happy accident – a lovely chap called Craig bid in an auction for the Hansel Foundation charity to be in one of my books.
So he became quite a significant character, actually, and, as Strathbungo is where he lives, so did it. But again, it turned out to be ideal, as it’s another place where rich and poor, rough and smooth, green space and crowded tenements all live alongside one another – which is true of a lot of Glasgow, and is one of the reasons I love the city, and love writing about it.
Do you have favourite Glasgow novels?
Kieron Smith, boy, by James Kelman. This was a definite influence on This Bright Life – a wee boy finding his way in a big city. I love how the precision of Kelman’s language takes you deep inside the minds of his characters, while using the changing, living city to reflect and amplify the changes taking place in Kieron. Also Open the Door by Catherine Carswell – it’s set in several places as well as Glasgow, but it gives an insight into a young woman trapped in Presbyterian Scotland – and also has scenes in a forgotten old artist’s studio that used to be directly across the road from us when we lived in Carmunnock, so it felt I had a personal connection with it somehow.
This Bright Life is published by Canongate. Available here.
Photo credit: Kim Ayers
