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*This book has been kindly given to me pre-publication via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*
No Precedent by John Uttley’s is the second novel he’s written that discusses Bob Swarbrick and Richard Shackleton’s lives, in a family heritage preservation style similar to the first. The book is not a direct continuation of the first, instead this one is written by Bob and his second wife Wendy, whereas Where’s Sailor Jack? was written by Bob’s son years after his fathers’ death. Following the first book, it discusses the lives of 60 to 70-year olds dealing with retirement, raising children during their 60s, finding faith amongst other issues.
Going into this book, I will openly admit I was wary, as you can imagine if you’ve read my review for Where’s Sailor Jack? Which I found boring, confusing, and out of place in literary culture. While I do think this book has some improvements over the first, I still feel like these two books are slightly purposeless, lacking a direction and drive to them. It is likely this review will be short because my problems and grievances with the first book are often repeated for this one.
Firstly, the sheer amount of characters present is unnatural in a book that is of average length. Because of the infidelities discussed in the first book, as well as Bob and Wendy having children much later in their lives, it creates a family tree with many branches, which are often irrelevant to the overall book. Not only is having too many characters confusing, but it distracts the reader from the very important themes that the book discusses of religions place in the modern world, and dealing with politics; whether we should retrospectively shame a group for actions they did 50 years ago, such as engineers damaging the planet. The blur of the characters phasing in and out of the story minimises the focus of the books core.
Following on from this, something I discusses heavily in Where’s Sailor Jack? Is the conflict the author goes through of dealing with mundane and interesting. Initially, I thought this book would be a lot more calm, theological, and philosophical in nature, because nothing could top the first books scandals, right? I was so wrong. In No Precedent, the reader very early on is presented with a new ‘family’ (if you can call it that) which centres Paul, an old classmate of Bob’s from back in the day. Paul has recently moved back to the north after being in London most of his life, with a wish of wanting to die in the place where he was born. The scandal and drama that follows, with Paul at the centre and Bob as the peacemaker and fairy godfather figure, is the crisis the entire book centres around (and I would definitely call what followed a crisis). Not only does this ‘family’ involve themselves in infidelity, endless pregnancies, wavering sexualities, and cunning and sly characters clearly just manipulating people, it is all, once again, happening with a religious background and sanctimonious undertones. These two extremes that is presented in both Where’s Sailor Jack? And No Precedent is unnecessary and extremely contradicting, yet modern. The dilemmas these families go through, from random mood swings to sleeping with stepdaughters, to a minister-in-training sleeping with her colleague who is married, is exhausting and overdone, now that I’m on his second book. The author seems to be wanting to write an action novel despite his characters being in the comfort of their little northern, quiet village.
This only adds to the importance of my next point – how did Where’s Sailor Jack? not mention any of this? Bob describes the events of the Paul scandal as ‘quite interesting’ and it clearly occupies much of his last years in Fylde, the setting of the book. The event of bumping into Paul that day shapes the entire narrative, and is presented only a couple of pages into the book, making me wonder if the sole purpose of this book is to carry on the fictional lives of these characters. If perhaps Paul was a character mentioned in passing in the first book and then this book developed from that, I think I’d understand, but even towards the end of the book, Bob acknowledges the importance of seeing Paul that day, believing it shaped many of his remaining days on earth. Bob’s acknowledgement doesn’t seem to be in line with the authors.
Despite these weaknesses, in my view the book ranks higher than the first purely because Uttley created much more lucrative conversations and discussions, I felt. Lengthier dialogue between Bob and Sophie, or with Wendy and Richard, regarding moral law, where their faith fitted into their lives and others, topics of abortion and what the loss of a loved one meant, created a stronger bond from reader to character. Ultimately, I felt myself enjoying some of the characters a lot more than I did the first-time round. This book presented people as being more rounded and complete, as opposed to pieces of an infidelity puzzle Uttley was creating with the first. By the end of the book, I was left emotional at some of the characters deaths as well as feeling like I knew them personally.
Overall, I did think this book was often forgettable, adding nothing to literary culture. Most of the time the characters were unlikable, sucked into the central scandals that Uttley felt he needed to add to give excitement to his novel. However, this book is a vast improvement from the first, both of because of greater character depth, as well as Uttley’s writing being raw and beautiful, as always. I hope to eventually read a Uttley novel that suits me a little more and will continue to support his upcoming work. If you wish to buy Uttley’s newest book, click here.