‘An unforgettable portrait of unromantic, hectic, dirty and exuberant life’ – The Stars In The Bright Sky by Alan Warner

The Stars in the Bright Sky is Alan Warner’s sixth novel and the long-awaited sequel to The Sopranos, a book that knocked me sideways when I first read it and still remains one of my all-time favourites.  Picking up three years after the earlier novel laid off, Warner scoops us right back into the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, back-talking and achingly funny world of Manda, Kylah, Chell, Kay Clarke, and of course, Finn – best known to the fans as Fionnula (the Cooler).  With the sixth Soprano, Orla, having died soon after the events of the previous novel, the group is rounded off this time by Ava, Finn’s ultra-posh university pal and house-mate – not to mention possible love-interest.  The girls convene in Gatwick airport to book a last-minute reunion holiday, and so the scene is set for hysteria, tantrums, piss-ups and parties.

If this is your first time reading Alan Warner, you’re in for a treat (though I’d strongly recommend you read The Sopranos first) – his prose is manic, poetic, and hugely original.  Like a host of other Scottish writers, he relies heavily on colloquialisms, but unlike Kelman or Welsh, for example, this isn’t ever a stumbling-block for the non-native reader – instead, it means that Warner’s dialogue, in particular, rings remarkably true – Manda Tassy’s constant exclamations of disgust and Chell’s exhortations not to ‘scum her out’ are still ringing in my ears.  His attention to speech patterns helps to build some of the best characterization you’re ever likely to come across – re-encountering Fionnula and her crew several years after I first met them, they were more vivid in my memory than some people I actually went to school with.  There’s not a single line here that doesn’t zing, and I dare you not to laugh out loud at least once while you’re reading.

I’m not going to talk about the plot here – too much of it relies upon escalating tension, and I don’t want to ruin the twists and turns – but suffice it to say that Warner’s managed to pull a set of surprisingly intricate scenarios out of what seems, initially, like a pretty limited set-up: six girls and their luggage in an airport terminal.  It doesn’t take long for the author to fill us in on the girls’ lives: Finn’s away reading philosophy down in London with Ava; Kay’s in Edinburgh studying architecture; Kylah’s sharing a flat with Chell while realising that her dream job, selling CDs in Woolworths, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; and Manda’s a single mother, working in her sister’s beauty salon and still living at home with her dad.  What I loved about The Sopranos was the way Warner used the minutiae of the teenage girls’ social rituals, their bitchiness, jealousy and insecurities, to explore the group dynamic, and how he layered this with the heartbreaking details of their circumscribed lives – poverty, broken families, and sexual and social insecurities.  As a sequel, The Stars in the Bright Sky understandably leaves much of this background unspoken; instead, we find the girls older, their relationships solidified and their insecurities magnified.  Whilst The Sopranos was indisputably Finn’s tale, she takes a back seat here, and it’s Manda’s turn to dominate.  Trapped in the small-town life she always claimed she wanted, Manda’s afraid and resentful of both the outside world and those, like Finn, who’ve dared to escape.  Her mockery of Ava, the rich and glamorous half-French addition to the group, mixed with her obvious longing to befriend her, is poignant and realistic, and her constant jibes at Kay and Finn recall years of pent-up bitterness and insecurity.  Manda’s abrasive, rude, embarrassing and insensitive; this could get irritating – it certainly annoys her friends, who draw lots to see who’ll have to share a hotel room with her – and there’s a danger she could be seen as a clown, but Warner avoids this:  the other girls’ reluctant but lingering affection for her means that the reader also tempers impatience with tolerance when Manda is stamping about, drunkenly shouting and insulting passers-by.

Manda might be extremely in-your-face, but there’s more to the novel than her tantrums – the Finn-Kay relationship simmers along underneath the surface, and the very few private moments the two girls share  are loaded with all the hopes and longing that saturated the final section of the earlier book.  Finn’s relationship with Ava is also understated; the sexual element isn’t acknowledged explicitly (other than by Manda), but the emotion between them is strong and touching.  Chell and Kylah are little more than supporting actors throughout most of the novel, though I think there’s enough detail and emotional depth here to pull yet another book out of this gang, centred around any one of the remaining characters.

Any Cop?: I couldn’t recommend this enough.  Go out and buy The Sopranos too – or any of Warner’s other novels – and get stuck in.  He gives us ; these girls could, and should, take on the world. 

Valerie O’Riordan