Grace
Trevithick is a documentary film producer who lives in London. She’s been part
of a successful team filming in central Europe, but she’s now preparing to
leave the team and strike out on her project. That will mean traveling to the
old industrial heartland of England and trying to find out why people want Britain
to leave the EU. The Brexit vote is coming.
Cairo
Jukes is something of a freelance laborer in a town called Dudley. He joins
work crews assembled for short stints and digging up pipes and other remnants
of the industrial past. It wasn’t that long ago when there were busy factories
here, providing regular work and full-time jobs. Now, he’s grateful for the
work when he can get it. At one time he was a promising boxer, but that didn’t
work out. He’s in his mid-40s and lives with his parents. His daughter and new
grandson have recently moved in, too, kicked out by Cairo’s ex-wife.
Grace and
Cairo meet, and he agrees to be interviewed. His parents are as well. When he
sees the report air, he’s somewhat surprised that the television station
thought it necessary to use English subtitles. He thought he spoke English.
The two
discover that even their own English languages are different or perceived as
different.
The result
of the Brexit vote shocked Europe, the British government, and British elites.
The editor of Peirene Press, in an attempt to understand how the vote happened,
commissioned novelist Anthony
Cartwright to write a novel of Brexit. The
Cut is what he wrote, and it’s a fascinating, wrenching novel.
 |
| Anthony Cartwright |
While no
work of fiction or non-fiction could capture everything of what Brexit was
about and meant, this one gives a taste. Alternating between events in the lives
of Cairo and Grace before and after the vote, we see the two characters progress
from documentary director and subject to romantic relationship. Cartwright,
through his characters, will ask whether this relationship is even possible.
Cartwright
is the author of four previous novels: The
Afterglow (2004); Heartland
(2010); How
I Killed Margaret Thatcher (2013); and Iron
Towns (2016). He lives in London.
The Cut doesn’t explain Brexit, but it
does allow a look, often a deep look, into the hearts of two people caught on
different sides of the debate.
Top photograph by Petr Kratochvil
via Public
Domain Images. Used with permission.
