Helen Walsh is young, female, and good-looking, so she’s going to be compared to Zadie Smith. Not the worst thing that could happen, but it’s like comparing Irvine Welsh to Nick Hornby; they’re both middle-aged balding men, but their writing’s totally different. Walsh is Welsh - she won’t sell as much as her happier, breezier rival, but she won’t starve either, and that lack of happy and breezy makes her . . . well, better.

’Brass,’ Walsh’s first novel, is shit-hot, basically; but when I tell you what happens, you’ll wonder why. It’s the story of our young, headstrong student Millie, and her older male-on-the-verge-of-settling down, pal Jamie. They share the narratives, our setting is Liverpool, they’re both into a good time (drugs) and they know some dodgy folk who have their own charm and whose dirtier deeds are all offscreen (the lack of violence is refreshing.) Oh, and Jamie’s getting married to a rich bitch who doesn’t approve of her fiancé’s platonic love affair with this younger girl.

For the majority of the novel, that’s your plot, but that doesn’t matter. It’s secondary, pretty much irrelevant; it’s all about the voice. Millie’s voice.

Millie is young, intelligent, brash, bright, and – to tell you the truth – a bit of a smart-arse (she even enlightens us on boxing.) She’s one of those girls-from-good-backgrounds walking on the wild side, but she’s also great company. She’s the type of girl you want to hang around with, for a night at least. Any more and she might tire you out.

Which brings me to the sex bit. That’s the main focus of every review on this book, and, while there isn’t much actual shagging in it, it’s probably the nature of it, and the nature of Millie’s desires, that shakes people up a bit. Millie’s a bisexual and a bit of a sexual predator, particularly towards prostitutes and young women. She goes for the sullied or the innocent in women – no middle ground.

So what you get here is what you’re supposed to get in ‘Sex And The City,’ only Millie is, despite her neuroses and frayed edges, beyond feminism. She does what she wants, she’s honest about it, she doesn’t spend all her time on shoes and quirky hats, and she isn’t written by gay men. Take this little take on the old ‘better to be any man than a poor woman’ Dworkin argument:

‘That I should feel jealous of him is absurd! A big fat suit, for fuck’s sake – somebody’s husband! And he’s picking up a whore, the wretch. He’s shopping for a crackhead. Where’s the challenge in that? There is none. Still, as a man, and a man with a car, he has privileges that I can only dream of. Even if he’s obese and miserable; even if she’s the lowliest, most rancid wraith, I still wish I were him.’

That’s right, she’s envious of this guy because he’s got more chance of picking up a prossie. Stuff like that will piss people off, and it’ll be mostly the right people too. For that, Walsh should be commended. But this isn’t liberation as sweetnes and light. It’s a girl being as dirty as the boys – reading porn; catching herpes; taking advantage of a young pissed tragic case, bruised from dad-inflicted beatings. For most of the book this is grimy stuff, making ‘Fear of Flying’ look as airbrushed and vaseline-lensed as those Joan Collins films where she shags her chauffeurs.

Throughout it all, Walsh’s writing has a nice flow. There’s a lot of similes and a few more poetic descriptions, but they ring truer here than they do in, for example, ‘Vernon God Little.’ In ‘Brass,’ our heroine and her chum are intelligent - one’s a student, the other reads Kelman (I dunno why, though Walsh seems to admire him.) In ‘Vernon God Little’ we had a supposedly-dumb hick guy coming out with elaborate language, descriptions, and other literary devices. That was alright in something outlandish, but ‘Brass’ is more down-to-earth, and needs authenticity, which it has.

Now, onto the faults, cause it isn’t perfect – nothing is. First off, you’ll have noticed I’ve hardly mentioned Jamie. That’s because, while he’s believable, a nice guy, and gives us another perspective on our heroine, that other perspective seems to be all he’s there for. It’s like Walsh, worried that people might read the book as straight memoir, might see Millie’s cocky nature and wildfire opinions as her own. So we get Jamie, to let us know that Walsh is all too aware of Millie’s faults and, of course, her vulnerability. Millie and Jamie’s relationship is touching, but we could probably have done without Jamie’s narrative, and stuck to Millie. More exhausting that way, but still . . .

Then there’s the plot twists that kick in towards the end. They seem a bit too sitcom-ish - a search for a parent; a misunderstanding causing a fall-out. Maybe it was the editor’s decision (they’re like that) – it reads like Walsh was asked to tie things up. As a result it’s a little too neat, thought thankfully it’s too good to dissolve into happy-ever-after-land.

These are minor quibbles, though. It’s all about The Voice, and the last debut novel I read with the same clout was ‘Fight Club.’ I hope Walsh ends up as prolific as our Chuck, because (cheesy way to end review following:) I’m really looking forward to whatever she does next.

Iain Bahlaj lives in Fife, Scotland. His short stories have appeared in Front & Centre, Fife Fringe, Chapman, Pulp.net and The Macallan Shorts 3 and 5. His novel, 'Tilt' was published in 2003 (Pulp Books, London). The short story 'Sugar' is a prequel to 'Tilt.' Iain currently works as a night-shift shelf-stacker, while working on a novel about vampires, in this spare time.

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.