Guest review by Dennis Hamley: THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE by Jonathan Coe

 

"A superb book. You’ll have to work hard at it. But the rewards are intensely satisfying." 

Dennis Hamley's first novel, Pageants of Despair, was published in 1974. He read English at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has a PhD from Leicester. After teaching, lecturing and acting as County English Advisor for Hertfordshire, he retired to write full-time. He has written widely for children and young adults; one of his best-known books, The War and Freddy, was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize. His recent adult novel, The Second Person from Porlock, is a fantasy riff on the chaotic life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was published in 2021. His highly-acclaimed novel Spirit of the Place will be reissued by Writers Review Publishing later this year. He lives in Oxford with his wife Kay, an artist.

Yes, Jonathan Coe is indeed a brilliant author. Acerbic about society and especially its politics, profound understanding of human, especially sexual, relationships, sometimes a bit of cosy crime, very funny – no wonder Bob Mortimer, himself a cosy crime author, says ‘My comfort read is anything by Jonathan Coe.’ But I think The Proof of my Innocence is anything but comfortable. Funny but alarming.

How many of us have been irritated by that persistent cry of 'See it, say it, sorted' which assaults our ears on train journeys? Well, it certainly annoys the first character, as yet unidentified, who we meet in the short, intriguing prologue. But the book has three parts. Guess what each of the three parts is called. A typical Coe joke. So why is Proof different in kind from its predecessors?

Phyl has come down from university. The only job she can find is preparing sushi at Heathrow airport. Back home, her mother Joanna, vicar of a small parish, is expecting an old university friend to call in on his way to a conference. Christopher Swann writes a much-read left-wing political blog and the conference he is bound for is the first of a group which calls itself British TrueCon. He knows he will not be welcome. He brings with him Rashida, his adopted daughter. She and Phyl will later make a formidable partnership.

Christopher and Joanna first met at St Stephen’s College, Cambridge, to which all the main characters went. I presume that the fictional St Stephen’s is based on Trinity College, the college of treachery, to which Burgess, Maclean and Philby went and of which Blunt was a fellow. Coe was at Trinity himself so he knows what he is talking about. The implication seems to me to be that the TrueCon gathering is not just a Reform-lite party conference but something sinister, treacherous and dangerous. Emeric Coutts, fellow of St Stephens, is the eminence grise. He runs salons in the college for like-minded students. This reminds me of the Apostles, a real subversive Cambridge secret society. When a Coutts salon is over and students leave, a few stay behind and disappear with Coutts into an adjoining room in which, presumably, really secret - and dangerous - discussions ensue.

These people are not playing politics. They are murderous. During the Truecon conference, Swann is murdered. Or is he? The strange ending of the book suggests otherwise. It parallels an odd incident on the notorious Fish Hill, three miles east of Evesham, during Swann’s drive to the conference. If the ending is ‘true’, perhaps he never got there.

The story continues teasingly obliquely. Odd footfalls in the memory. What is the significance of the old ballad, Oh you have been poisoned, oh Randall my son? Who has poisoned him? His sweetheart. What will he leave her? A rope from hell to hang her.

A Rope from Hell. The title of a novel by Peter Cockerill, a famous writer who commits suicide. Or does he? Somebody does. The trouble is, we can never be sure who we are talking to. Nothing is ever what it seems. This tightly constructed novel seemingly moves with the inconsequentiality of dream. Or nightmare.

As a final joke, the story begins on the first day of Liz Truss’s doomed premiership and ends on the day of its ignominious conclusion.

 
A superb book. You’ll have to work hard at it. But the rewards are intensely satisfying. The clue is in the title.

The Proof of my Innocence is published by Viking.

See also Dennis's feature on his novel The Second Person from Porlock.