The Folded Man is the debut novel of Matt Hill, a writer currently based in London but born in Manchester, and it’s clearly Manchester his heart is closest to, because it is Manchester that provides the backbone, the ambience, the gritty alternate reality of this extraordinary story.
It’s 2018, and things in near-future Britain are not looking good. The action of the novel takes place against a backdrop of racist vigilante violence, terrorist insurgence and police brutality. Mass outbreaks of rioting have laid waste to the urban environment. The civilian population is under curfew, and both petty and not-so-petty crime runs more or less unchecked.
Our unlikely hero is Brian Meredith, an unemployed drug addict and wheelchair user who believes he is a mermaid. Brian suffers from the rare genetic condition sirenomelia – his legs are fused together, giving them the appearance of a fish’s tail. As most people born with sirenomelia seldom live more than a couple of days, Brian is something of a miracle. He should not be alive – and yet he is. Hill’s vital and unflinching portrayal of this extraordinary character is very nearly as rare a miracle as Brian himself.
Brian begins the novel in a state of numb passivity. His main protector, his mother, is dead. His city is being smashed to ruins before his eyes. It is as much as Brian can do to keep himself alive and in coke. Then, half bullied and half persuaded by his friend Noah, he finds himself caught up in a series of events that make even the fact of his extraordinary existence pale to ordinariness by comparison. What follows is part thriller, part chiller, part X Files conspiracy. Brian is deceived, used, abused, confused – but doggedly refuses to take on the role of victim. That he is able to survive at all in such a hostile environment is noteworthy. That he is able to finally be master of his destiny is – that word again – miraculous.
This is a science fiction novel that manages – just – to keep its science fictional rationale where lesser novels of the urban slipstream have crashed and burned. I spent the final thirty pages of this book on the edge of my seat – not so much in suspense over the outcome (much as I loved it) but on tenterhooks as to whether Hill would be able to hold the story together. He does, and I cheered inwardly at his achievement. It would be impossible to write many words about The Folded Man without also passing comment on the narrative style, a kind of broken stream of consciousness, a window into Brian-world, an unblinking, unshrinking grasping-of-the-nettle from Brian’s perspective. I loved this too – all the more so in retrospect, because of the way it grew on me. I have to confess I didn’t warm to Brian all that much at first – he kind of pissed me off – but by the end of the book I was wholly with him, protective of him but inspired by him too: rejoicing in his tenacity, his fuck-you attitude to the indignities that constantly threaten to overwhelm him, mesmerised by his very particular, very nearly insane brand of personal courage.
If there is hope in this novel – and I think there is – it lies in the resilience of Manchester and its people – people like Brian – in their refusal to have others run their lives for them. The one thing Brian will not let go of is his love for Manchester, and from time to time, through his eyes, we glimpse moments of a future in which the broken city he calls his home will rise from its ashes.
I understand that Matt Hill is currently working on a second novel. I truly hope that it will be a speculative one. The British fantastic needs him. An outstanding debut.