Another Mask for the Dead

Dichotomy or duality. Maybe they're just fancy words for indecisiveness and destabilisation. Just as subversion and iconoclasm are fancy words for an unsettled mind that wouldn't stick to one lane. A critic of lesser vocabulary, or the gall to speak ill of the dead, might simply distil all of the above to: asshole terrible.

Whether it's Paul Stewart the man, the son, the husband, the father, or what many who did not know him personally would know him as: the award-winning writer.

A lot has been said about Paul Stewart. At any one time, his name was spoken in equal measures: genius and disruptive, self-indulgent narcissist.

On approaching this essay, it was important to take note of these dissertations and assessments, but also to look beyond them. There is no doubt in this writer's mind that Paul Stewart attracted both praise and derision and actually welcomed it. It was an intrinsic part of his craft: to question, destabilise, make us feel and think.

His lack of academic grounding often plagued him during the formative years of his late blooming in the literary world. The accidental poet, a self-appointed title that both benefited and hindered him, perfectly captured his inability to fully come to terms with his skill and craft. However, whereas with other writers their crippling imposter syndrome seemed hellbent on holding them back and preventing them from ever fully reaching their potential, Stewart's imposter syndrome regularly warred with his deep-seated self-belief, which was often scornfully described as nothing more than arrogance.

Veering between the same kind of surprise and horror that anyone might read his poems or fiction that Van Gogh inhabited and the almost "of course they'll read it" attitude that someone like Picasso exuded. Though, at his heart, he always hoped to be seen more as a Caravaggio, Bacon, Pollock or Bosch.

Again, looking at Paul Stewart, the man and his legacy, the body of his work, is like discussing the dichotomy. Many of his peers would not hesitate to lavish praise on his direction as a humble champion for the little guy and girl. Rather than simply paying tribute to the long-past greats he admired so much—Dickinson, Poe, Shelley, Stevenson, Bukowski, Stoker, Welsh and Burns—he was also known to lend his voice to supporting other indie writers like himself.

Many would argue that he courted controversy because he chose to speak about the subjects many would avoid or detach themselves from. Just as when you closely analyse Bukowski and his body of work, you realise that rather than simply being a reprehensible person who happened to have a following, he was a mirror held up to a certain section of society. He was a complicated man who refused to hide his failings, even if it meant his take on life presented him in a bad light, because that was his truth. Much the same can be said of Paul's work.

"As she grins and moans in rehearsed abandon

My pupils dilate as I fixate—entranced

As my hand reaches down—soft-on-hard, flesh-on-flesh

The sweat, the musk, and saltiness hit my lungs

As I swallow the bitter aftertaste of regret." — Simulated Sensuality, Paul Stewart, 2024.

He had vices. He had a weakness for the carnal, be it in the form of pornography or illicit online extramarital affairs. He never tried to separate himself or his art from these more questionable parts of his character.

He embraced them in all their ugliness because he knew there were many just like him.

To the mere casual observer or reader, this could be considered a way to grossly capitalise on his repugnancy. After all, his loyal and faithful wife had faced his demons with him and was often the one most hurt by their actions. How could he maintain any semblance of being a modern man while economising on art that was fed by hurtful actions? This will always be a sticking point and one of the more hotly debated areas of his legacy.

However, it is this writer's opinion that to crudely suggest Paul Stewart was only a recognisable face in the literary world because of his failings is a travesty and a disservice. It shows a lack of real understanding.

"I find, then, this law in my case: When I wish to do what is right, what is bad is present with me." — Romans 7:21.

Would he have been as successful a writer at understanding the war between wanting to be a good person and failing, as the Apostle Paul so eloquently described, if he had not understood it painfully himself? That remains to be seen. But his work outside of that which tackled his failings head-on is prime evidence that his legacy is not simply based on being the "accidental sex addict writer."

It takes a special kind of literary genius to handle unreliability in narrative so deftly that you are often left wondering whether the writer themselves believed the constructed reality they created.

He refused to be pigeonholed, to fit neatly into a specific box. Again, this is often discussed as a negative: that rather than being a sign of his chameleon-like ability, it was a spotlight on what he lacked as a writer.

"Ah cannae be arsed cooking them though. So, Ah jist pick them up an' tear open the packet an' start munching them doon.

That didnae really fill a hole. Ah need something else. Ah hear the neighbour's cat in the close…must ha' left him ootside again. Licking mah lips at a cat…whit's goat intae me?

Never mind, Ah'm starving. So, Ah sneak oot an' find the whinging little pussy an' pounce on it. Biting an' tearing at its flesh, Ah catch sight of mah reflection of the close door windae. Whit the hell is up wae me? Ah must be dreamin'." — Weegie Wolf, Paul Stewart, 2024.

Take a work like his lupine social commentary novel Weegie Wolf. Many argue that his lack of formula and his almost knee-jerk challenge against accepted tropes and traditional horror writing was a sign that he was not that adept at the genre and merely succeeded in taking it apart with a knowing wink and nod, irritating people with modernism. Subversive for the sake of it.

Even his decision to follow the likes of Irvine Welsh, one of his heroes, and write it completely in Glaswegian slang was met with as much positivity for staying true to his voice as it was negativity for making the reading experience harder and less inclusive.

Another crude misreading, in my humble opinion. There was nothing wrong with recontextualising the lupine myth. Rather than having his main character become afraid of the beast that dwelt within him, or centring the story on the war between remaining the hero and fighting the villainous urge, he tapped into a darker, more cerebral horror. What if the one person who is granted power beyond what is human finds it a curse because all he wants is to fight the real demon—his drug addiction—and live a quiet life away from scrutiny?

The questions that this crowning achievement, masquerading as a darkly humouristic satire on Glaswegian life close to the poverty line, asks are important and valid. Sure, it is crude, stupid and self-indulgent. There are many passages that feel like Stewart simply wanted a vehicle to share his witticisms on life and society without purpose. They were cattle prods to the very targets he knew would feel attacked by them.

Admittedly, though, there are passages in Weegie Wolf that struggle to remain purely fiction and are hard to read as anything other than attempts to settle scores. While defenders of Stewart will call them provocations, detractors consider them nothing more than literary tantrums. It is my surmising that the distinction is much smaller than either side would care to admit.

His handling of addiction, again, depending on the lens through which it is microscopically analysed, is either held up as a fine example of a Shakespearean understanding of the inner workings and foibles of humanity or as another shrewd attempt to curry favour with sections of his audience who see themselves in Paul and his struggles.

While he did sit down and offer candid interviews with intimidating hosts who cut through all the bullshit, his answers never really felt like they revealed more than his work ever did. Not performative, but not revelatory either.

So now that he has passed, all we truly possess is the work and the stories that have grown around it. The interviews revealed little that the poems and novels had not already confessed in coded form, and perhaps that was always the point. Perhaps the man and the myth were never separate things.

Even in what I considered an honest attempt to navigate between hagiography and condemnation, I find I have merely contributed another version of Paul Stewart to the ever-growing archive. Another interpretation. Another convenient narrative. Another critic, convinced they have finally seen the man behind the work, only to discover they have instead built yet another mask for the dead to wear.