'The Afterparty' by Leo Benedictus

I was recently complaining about the lack of ‘books for boys’ available on book shop shelves. Bar the McNabs, Pattersons and war torn historical novels, new releases often seem stiflingly domestic-centric, concerned with the tepid undulations of home life and the challenging family. However, Leo Benedictus’s debut novel The Afterparty is a self-confessed boys book of testosterone tinted ‘hyperfiction’.

Though this is perhaps a little unfair; after all, it would be reductive to suggest that the triumph of The Afterparty lies simply in its slight gendered tone. Instead, it is a novel in which the experimental form is the source of much of the drama and is what transforms this text from an entertaining tale of celebrity misdemeanour into a convincing stab at an innovative narrative producing a text that will make the average postmodern fan weak at the knees.

The narrative, for a start, is duplicitous; a novel within a novel interspersed by correspondence between a literary agent and William Mendez (a pseudonym for the ‘real writer’). In turn this ‘real writer’ (who can’t meet the publishers because it would reveal his identity) recommends the stunt of placing another individual, Leo Benedictus, as the pretend ‘real writer’ in an attempt to distance any prying into the identity of the actual writer (who we learn has an involvement in a criminal case which the events of the novel within The Afterparty closely resemble, but don’t match). Simple. As the correspondence develops a whole new storyline manifests and when the different strains of the novel fall into place the distinction between what is real and what is manufactured becomes audaciously blurred in a manner very apt for the subject of celebrity.

Luckily, despite the apparent complexity, the novel actually has a wonderfully fluid pace and the convolutions of the narrative engage both in the novel and the correspondence. The novel within The Afterparty is called Publicity***** and flickers between the narratives of four individuals over a 12 hour period. Each with their own font this can at first appear as a gratuitous exploration of all acceptable type-faces, but once the voices become distinguished Benedictus’s ability to delicately handle the tonal movements becomes satisfying to read and frequently very funny. In fact, the novel is riddled with humour and subtle observations such as actor Hugo’s morbid response to a death for which “he did not feel sorrow. Just tiredness – and the fact that he liked coffee”.

This is a remarkable debut that sets itself apart from current new releases in a number of ways, not least because of its unapologetic self-awareness and attempts at self promotion that correlate perfectly with its exploration of celebrity culture and the manufacturing of personas or information. The emails enable an ongoing defence of the novel; ‘Mendez’ expresses his worry of the handling of the material and style and frequently defends against the misgivings of the agent. The featuring of ‘real people’ such as Gordon Ramsay and Elton John in the party scenes can threaten to remove this novel into a series of star studded satires, but there is in fact little mockery in the tone and, rather refreshingly, Benedictus is more concerned with making the most of what he calls “a new kind of novel” which he covetously champions in various interviews. This might not mark a brand new direction in fiction, but it’s a pretty convincing attempt.

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