Have you ever worked at a terrible, low-paid job and the only thing which got you through every gruelling hour was thinking 'One day I'll write a novel about this and then you'll see!' I've had several menial positions in my life from fast food to dressing as a ghoul in an amusement park's haunted house but I've never managed to write a successful book about them to get that sweet revenge. However, journalist and screenwriter GauZ' is living the dream. He grew up in the African country of Cote d'ivoire before moving to Paris where he became an undocumented student and security guard before returning to his native country. His debut novel “Standing Heavy” was first published in French in 2014 and won a prestigious award. It was recently translated into English and it's now been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023. The uniquely structured story moves between different decades describing the experiences of several black men from Cote d'ivoire employed in Paris as security guards. Their observations about the people around them, the consumerist institutions and the country itself are so satisfyingly cutting and humorous this book is a pleasure to read. It also gives an eye opening view and valuable new perspective on the long lasting effects of colonialism, capitalism and shifts in society over the past several decades.

It also clearly shows what should have already been glaringly obvious: that black men are favoured in the profession of security because of the stereotype that they are strong and intimidating. There are so many contradictions wrapped up in this state of being because the guard is both powerful and powerless. He is visible to those who want to shoplift and are deterred from stealing after seeing him. However, he's also invisible to many of the shoppers except as a source of amusement and to the larger society and the institutions who employs him. Therefore it's pleasing to see the tables turned and get the point of view of the guard as he's engaged in the tedious and soul crushing job of standing all day watching frivolous shoppers purchasing expensive things they don't need and adding to the wealth of organizations who only pay him a pittance. The maddening effects of this kind of work is intensely felt in the story. For instance, it's observed how “a security guard can expect to be exposed to 120 musical horrors in the space of a six-hour shift.” His only respite is relying on his imagination to fill the repetitive hours.

Many of the guard's observations focus on the habits of shoppers with their silly and cringe-worthy behaviour. However, they also point to how this consumerism is inextricably tied to movements between nations and the commodification of culture. It describes how what's known as The African Print is “The preposterous gaudy culmination of the infernal cycle of humiliations inflicted upon the Negro peoples since slavery.” Many of our material desires and habits go unquestioned but this narrative highlights how they are linked to power structures and history in a very real and immediate way. Unsurprisingly many of the points also have a mocking tone and express different levels of humour from the more juvenile to sophisticated social critiques. And some of these observations fall back on semi-sexist and racist stereotypes. This can make for uncomfortable reading at some points but the author acknowledges in the book “When we do not understand 'the other', we invent it, usually with racist cliches.” These sections are a part of being so thoroughly rooted in the guard's perspective shown in this story.

Yet the quips which recount the guard's thoughts and reflections while he's engaged in surveillance only make up part of this book. Other sections move between periods of time as different men learn to settle in Paris and find work. They capture periods of political and ideological change as these immigrants at first find hope of upward social mobility and education only to have these aspirations dashed. An individual named Joseph observes after 9/11 “The whole planet has been plunged into the age of paranoia... an era of law and order.” The demand for security and also the regulation of security inhibits these men's ability to progress as people are gripped by fear. At first I didn't really see how the different sections of the book came together, but towards the end it became extremely moving how they link up to give a wider view of this changing society and the fate of these individuals. The tone changes between parts so it's like a series of anecdotes (some of which work better than others) mixed with longer detailed observations about the men's living conditions. This forces the reader to adjust how they read from section to section. There's also a poignancy to how the guard whose observations we get in the 2010s is faceless and nameless even though we are so steeped in his innermost thoughts. It's a strikingly original piece of fiction and it's so heartening to see this author achieving even more success with this novel.

I first became aware of Valerie Solanas amidst my teenage obsession with Andy Warhol. During this period I loved reading books by and about Warhol as I was entranced by how this nerdy awkward kid of Polish descent from Pittsburgh grew to be the famed leader of an art movement. Solanas was one of the interlopers who frequented Andy’s factory and starred in one of his films, but in 1968 Solanas shot Warhol and almost killed him. Her story was brilliantly realised by Lili Taylor in the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol. Solanas was a radical feminist and anarchist who wrote a book called the “SCUM Manifesto” which encouraged women to overthrow society and eliminate the male sex. She was evidently very troubled and difficult, but an absolutely fascinating person. Sara Stridsberg reimagines Solanas’ story in her novel “The Faculty of Dreams” which was longlisted for this year’s Man Booker International Prize. We follow Solanas from childhood through to her sadly impoverished later years with frequent leaps backwards and forwards in time simulating the fragmented consciousness of this highly-intelligent and problematic heroine. In doing so Stridsberg captures Solanas’ frustrated brilliance as well as her obsessive mind, mental breakdown and how she was one of many radical outsiders who were scorned and swept under the rug of society.

Stridsberg doesn’t hide the fact she feels a deep sympathy for Solanas and sometimes intervenes in the text to say so in dialogues between a “Narrator” and Solanas. But this isn’t just a fan’s tale. The story she creates conveys Solanas’ deep complexity and hardship from early abuse/emotional neglect to her evident struggles with mental illness – but she also recounts opportunities Solanas didn’t fully take advantage of such as her university accolades and how Solanas’ resolutely combative nature alienated her even from people honestly trying to help her. The style of Stridsberg’s narrative conveys Solanas’ extremely strained mental state where internalized abuse and trauma start to sound like an echo chamber from which she can’t escape: “there was nothing left to cry about except America would keep on fucking me and all fathers want to fuck their daughters and most of them do and only a few don’t and it’s not clear why except the world will always be one long yearning to go back.” This effectively produces a sense of claustrophobia in the reader who becomes equally trapped in Solanas’ circular and exhausting thought process.

Of course, this makes some parts of the books difficult to read. While I appreciated Stridsberg’s stylistic choices such as presenting dialogue like a script and creating impressionistic lists it was often disorientating trying to locate where we were and it sometimes felt tiring reading Solanas repeating the same withering verbal onslaught against men (including gay men who she branded “faggots” and women who comply in a male-dominated society.) This was effective in conveying how Solanas was a tragic figure as you witness people becoming increasingly alienated from her and how she’d plead for money from someone while simultaneously attacking them. But I wished for a bit more clear-sighted detail about her downward spiral especially in the breakdown of her relationship with a woman named Cosmo that she strongly connected with at university. Nevertheless, there are some heartrending moments like when Solanas calls her mother Dorothy while she’s at university hoping for her approval but only getting her mother’s soporific mourning for Marilyn Monroe. There are also some fascinating periphery characters such as her early friendship with a gay prostitute called Silk Boy and strange bond with her psychologist Dr Cooper. Stridsberg shows how there were bands of outsiders across the country and these are the people’s whose stories are so seldom told.

It's curious how Stridsberg continues to be fascinated by and drawn to Solanas though she’s very aware that Solanas would most likely refute her. The author playfully alludes to this in the metafictional line: “no sentimental young women or sham authors playing at writing a novel about me dying. You don’t have my permission to go through my material.” Yet this is exactly what Stridsberg does so if Solanas is the high priestess of SCUM this book is a kind of sacrilegious act. But Stridsberg clearly sees value in Solanas’ extreme point of view within the feminist movement. She gives Solanas lines which still feel compelling in thinking about sexual politics today: “Your gender isn’t a prison. It’s an opportunity. There are just different ways of telling. Write your own account.” This feels like a thought that will strongly resonate with members of a newer generation who refuse to define their gender. Equally, Solanas represents a voice from a diminished class of people whose only source of income is begging or prostitution. She states “A room of one’s own is a fiction that doesn’t work.” It feels like her point of view is an important repost to the privileged classes that typically dominate the narrative of history.

I greatly admired this book’s inventive style and faithful desire to give such a controversial historical figure a better ending than the one she actually got.