Not enough “no”? A Sixpenny Song by Jennifer Johnston

I’m always suspicious of novels penned by the famous: when the name’s enough to shift the copies off the shelves I’m concerned they won’t have put in their 10,000 hours of apprenticeship to develop the writing craft. It goes against the grain to say it, as I believe we learn better through praise than punishment, but I think we writers need to have been told time after time that our work isn’t good enough before we reach the pinnacle of publication.

I have similar feelings about established writers with a lengthy backlist. Sure, they’ve earned their place in those hallowed halls but, with a clutch of literary prizes on the mantelpiece, they don’t have to work so hard to stay there. So why did I pick up (the much lauded Irish writer) Jennifer Johnston’s fifteenth novel? Perhaps it was because I so enjoyed one of her late-ish works, This Is Not a Novel. Perhaps, as I discovered via musician Nick Cave’s wonderful The Death of Bunny Munro, and Peter Matthiessen’s moving final novel, In Paradise, exceptions do exist.



A woman returns to her childhood home following the death of a parent and, in the process, discovers some painful truths about her family which impact on how she perceives herself.

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It’s the middle-aged version of the adolescent coming-of-age story and, as such, one with which many of us can identify. If we’re writers, we might have our own version in our hearts, in our heads or on the page. But, because it’s such an obvious story, if it’s to make its way into an actual book, it’s going to have to be good. It’s going to need something extra – strong writing, unusual characters, an intriguing setting – to lift it above the morass. Another Irish writer, Anne Enright, achieves this magnificently in The Gathering; Jenna Blum does it beautifully in Those Who Save Us.

In contrast, Jennifer Johnston serves up flimsy characters, banal conversations, clichéd plot devices (such as truths revealed through the diary of a man who’s unlikely to have kept one), and intrusive snippets of the nursery rhyme from which she takes her title so dull even the main character becomes irritated with them:

The king was in his counting house … counting … counting … ‘Oh, shut up,’ she said aloud, ‘just shut up.’ (p161)

Yet my favourite part of the novel was a reference to another song which, for reasons that will become apparent should you ignore my advice and read the book, the narrator hated hearing her mother sing: Miss Otis Regrets by Cole Porter. (But I love it!)

I’m not blind to the envy, born of the many times I’ve been told “no” on my quest to become a published novelist, making me extra critical of writers putting out work I consider below par. I’m also aware that some readers are fiercely loyal to their favourite writers and are content to gobble up whatever crumbs they toss from the table. But when there are so many better novels for us to choose from, including those from writers who have been practising their craft a shorter time, I’d recommend you to look elsewhere. But do feel free to disagree.

Thanks to Tinder Press for my review copy and sorry I couldn’t agree with your description of “a brief masterpiece: acerbic, lyrical, witty and heartbreaking”– apart from, thankfully, that it was brief.