Kerry has had some great reviews for The Black Country, including one in the Independent on Sunday and a piece on the Black Country the geographical area, not the novel written by Kerry herself that was published in the Metro — see photo on the left. As I know from observation on the , the Metro shares its readership with many voracious consumers of novels so I hope this was a well-targeted piece of publicity.
Discarded on trains and tubes, copies of the newspaper disappear very quickly indeed, especially in London, where their dispense points are filled in the afternoon by the Evening Standard.
However, I managed to save the day by finding a couple of spare copies left over in my local station, which were dispatched, post haste, up to the Black Country. Kerry kindly signed a copy of the novel for me in return.
I read the novel very quickly. To do so would risk giving away too many spoilers to those who take up my recommendation and buy the book. I did, eventually, discover the identity of the narrator, which had been on of the most intriguing aspects of the novel during the course and one that Kerry had refused to reveal. I remembered some sections very clearly while, at least according to my memory, others had been reworked, with familiar passages appearing among what seemed to be new writing.
There are many such passages of excellent, evocative prose, particularly describing the uniquely dour, post-industrial landscape of the Black Country itself. On reflection, perhaps The Black Country illustrates the experience she brought along to the MA course. Whereas others may have started the course with the proverbial blank page and used the workshop sessions to experiment and shape the direction of their novels, I feel Kerry had a good idea at the outset of how and where she wanted to go with The Black Country , perhaps not in mechanical terms, such as the exact plot, but certainly with the tone, the characters of the protagonists and the identity of that narrator.
