Book Review: "The Grass Arena" by John Healy

John Healy's autobiographical novel may have been out of print for a few years, but it has been on my radar for a while - especially ever since I heard that Sir Daniel Day-Lewis had good things to say about it and that was shortly after it was released on DVD. I didn't know these comments had been shared almost a decade earlier and was pretty let down to know how late I was to the party.

I have to say that to read autobiographies by people I have not heard of is instantly more interesting than reading biographies and autobiographies by people I have heard of. Why? Well, because there is always an element of learning about the other person - it's like making a new friend without facing the rejection of knowing that one day they're going to get up and leave you because you're boring or plain. Once you shut the book, it stays there. It doesn't leave.

Healy's The Grass Arena begins with a turbulent relationship between father and son. His father is physically abusive, verbally horrifying and psychologically torturous but, his mother seems to be a little bit of the opposite - a warmer woman who wants to get in the way. Though his father gets less violent with age (as is stated in the book), because of the sheer levels of violence to begin with, the reader is left asking questions about what 'less violent' means exactly. It's a gap that doesn't really get filled at all - and that is the whole point.

A boxing career that never really takes off because of rampant drinking causes Healy to become embroiled in dangerous, illegal and often horrendous situations which involve homelessness, jail and jumping out on the army. His narrative which begins as a simple Catholic boy questioning his faith, his personality and his background becomes more virtiolic when he turns into a nasty bar-fighting drinker. Something, eventually, he cannot help.

As the narrative progresses, we see Healy in very intense situations, each more intense than the last. Scene after scene, you see life for how it was for him; one day blended into the next, one hour blended into another and eventually, blackouts meant that there is almost no information at all until Healy wakes up on the side of the road somewhere.

From Dublin, to County Sligo, to London and everywhere in between, Healy gives us a sense of his travels and being left alone with his luggage by late and cheap aunts. He gives us the difference in flavour between Ireland and England, the cultures and their individual flairs and the way in which the fancier bars would eventually stop serving him and he's forced to drink in a Kentish Town Cider House. He would get into a horrid fight with a man twice his size and would be lucky he didn't die.

I believe that everyone can relate to a certain experience within this book. Whether it is going to a horrible Catholic school, having a terribly abusive family, dealing with issues out of your control, unemployment, jumping the army, unluckiness in love, alcoholism, addiction of some kind or even the way in which people walk in and out of your life without necessarily asking - they've left their marks, unfortunately. It is a wonderful novel with a remarkable sense of voice - at times you can almost hear Healy speaking to you as slights of colloquialisms make their way through the narrative.

The redemption arc really is not what anyone was thinking but it brings you into the thinking that anything is genuinely possible. The only downside to that thought would be that if it were true then nobody would have bothered to write a great book about it. Be that as it may, this text brings fifteen years of homelessness, wreckless self-destruction and burning desires to drink and fight to a weird crescendo, tapering it into a life experience rather than a mistake. A mistake would not leave you with a story this good to tell others. I respect Healy's management of this terrific narrative to own up to all the petty crimes, the vandalism, the weird biblical quotes on the wall and most of all - the regrets.

It's a truly underrated book.