Writing a state-of-the-nation novel that is also tense and funny is no mean feat, but that’s what Amanda Craig seems to have accomplished in High and Low. Ambitious and far-reaching, ittakes not a scalpel but a machine gun to the issues of modern city living, leaving no target safe. Set on a north London street over the course of a single day, it compresses time and space, which, together with its plethora of characters, gives a feeling as oppressive as the city itself.
Cross Street houses a cosmopolitan mix of the privileged and the poor. Prospect Park and the Cross Estate are both metaphorical and geographical parallels, rubbing together while rarely intersecting. Alongside these highs and lows, Craig focuses on the world of the writer. The action centres on a café where local authors gather and put the world to rights. But on this day they batten down the hatches after violence breaks out in the neighbourhood and they find themselves under siege from thugs armed with knives and a gun. If the level of brutality and urgency seems at odds with the setting, the writers wholeheartedly agree: ‘I am supposed to be living in a mildly satirical comedy of manners, he thought, not an airport thriller.’ English politeness and social norms are no match for savagery.
The conceit of the writers actually helps Craig attempt to make sense of the surreal events of the story – and, indeed, of the modern world. ‘Life is ridiculous. Don’t you understand? Writers try to give it shape, but reality is a mess.’ The tone, however, is nowhere near as sombre as one might expect of a novel about race riots and murder, and by the climax things become almost farcical.
The style, then, is also both high and low: cutting social commentary in one breath and near-pantomime in the next. As Craig puts it: ‘Real life is a mash-up of everything, funny stuff and sad stuff, and mostly it doesn’t make sense.’
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