Review 500: Sugar and Rum

Sugar and Rum by Barry Unsworth
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars


This novel takes place in Liverpool in the late 1980s, written back then as well. Benson, the main character, is a writer and stuck on his latest book. He walks aimlessly about town and strikes up conversations with just about anyone on subjects that are quite odd to discuss with a stranger. Benson sees metaphors and meanings in things that likely are not there and how this relates to him he talks about with anybody.

Benson also has a consulting business helping out other writers, the fictioneers he calls them. There are passages of these fictional writings that he helps to improve and get them unstuck.
After a while the book settles into almost a plot, after Benson runs into an old army buddy. His service during WWII comes into play with reminiscences and reliving some of the anguish.

The book is very solidly about Liverpool, the past as part of Benson’s book he’s trying to write, and also the present, with the results of years of Thatcherism, the city’s decay, the unemployed and disaffected youths with no prospects.

This book is said to be fairly autobiographical. Perhaps Unsworth had writer’s block for the story he wanted to write (about Liverpool and the slave trade) and instead he ended up writing this one, about his war experiences and helping other’s with their fiction work. I haven’t read any of his work before, but he seems like a writer that know his craft.