Black Drop
by Leonora Nattrass
A book review
Before publishing her debut novel Black Drop, Leonora Nattrass wrote an academic work about William Cobbett – English farmer, journalist and MP who lived at the cusp between the 18th and 19th Centuries – and also edited several volumes of Cobbett’s writings. Her studies of that era of history, one marked by social upheaval and stirrings of revolt, provide her with plenty of material for her debut. But if you’re concerned that Black Drop reads like a dry academic text fear not – it’s definitely not.
Nattrass’ debut is, in fact, a rollicking tale of crime, spying and political intrigue, set at a time when the English political establishment was mightily afraid of the revolutionary wind blowing from France and wary of the diplomatic overtures of the newly independent Americans. The plot unfolds over the year 1794 and its protagonist is one Laurence Jago, a young clerk to the English Foreign Office. Jago cuts an eccentric figure, with his green-tinted glasses, penchant for getting into scrapes, and an increasing dependency on the eponymous opium-based tincture Black Drop. For some strange reason, I found myself imagining him played by Johnny Depp in a movie version of the book…
Jago, whose mother is French, is also a (sometimes) reluctant informer to the enemy, although he is becoming increasingly conflicted about this. When an explosive letter is leaked to and published by the press, Laurence comes under suspicion. His position becomes increasingly delicate following the mysterious death of a fellow clerk and other individuals involved in political and conspiratory circles.
Black Drop is an engaging, fast-paced thriller, enlivened with vivid descriptions evoking the sights, sounds and smells of a past era. For added authenticity Nattrass has her anti-hero interact with a colourful cast of both real and imagined characters, including Prime Minister William Pitt, Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville and under-Secretary George Aust, with whose daughter Jago is unrequitedly in love. Then there’s William Philpott who, though fictional, appears to be inspired by none other than William Cobbett. A larger-than-life Dickensian character, Philpott is a voice for justice, humanity, reason and good sense in a world marked by fear, violence, intolerance and political compromise.
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| Anonymous portrait of William Cobbett, the inspiration for the novel's William Philpott |
Quite surprisingly, despite the dark subjects which make of Black Drop a sort of historical noir, there is also a humorous vein which runs through the novel: be it Jago’s witty and self-deprecatory comments, or the comedic set-pieces which have Theodore, the American envoy’s son, visiting prostitutes of either sex to convince them to abandon their debauched lifestyles.
An
intelligent and entertaining read, Black Drop is a debut which leaves
one wishing for a sequel.
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| Panoramic view of the Thames, circa 1751 |
Although music is by no means a central element in Black Drop, it does get a mention here and there. A case in point, for instance, is the repeated reference to Ça Ira, a French revolutionary song which was first heard in 1790, just a few years prior to the time when the novel is set. The song became a sort of anthem for the revolutionaries.
The song provides the name for the opera by Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame), unsurprisingly set during the French Revolution. Here is the Overture taken from the CD version of the work
Much as one can admire certain ideals of the French revolutionaries, the years of the Revolution were also a time of violence, reprisals and quick changes of alliances. The massacres and public executions which were taking place, particularly around the time in which the novel is set, were dubbed the “Reign of Terror”, and left an impact on the nation’s collective memory and imagination. In 1830, we find French composer Hector Berlioz composing his Symphonie Fantastique. Although a purely orchestral work, the symphony is accompanied by a preface and detailed programme notes for each of the work’s movements which give us an inkling to the composer’s inspiration. The protagonist, a young musician afflicted by melancholy and ennui, falls obsessively in love with an “ideal woman” whose image haunts him everywhere, whether in the tumult of the city or in the natural surroundings of the countryside. Not unlike Jago, his attentions are largely unreturned, and our hapless hero takes an opium overdose and has nightmarish visions of his own death at the scaffold. The fourth movement of the symphony, the March to the Scaffold, it is a garishly portrayed musical memory of the fear which marked the Reign of Terror.
If Paris had its urban folksongs, London also had its soundscape of traditional songs and cries. A long-loved CD album of mine is a recording by the Dufay Collective of popular London songs of the 17th Centuries. I know that this is earlier than the novel’s setting, but it does not require any audacious stretch of the imagination to presume that similar ditties may have still been heard by Laurence Jago.
In 1974,
the Italian avant-garde composer Luciano Berio was inspired by the traditional
cries of London market seller to write his vocal work The Cries of
London. The melodies he uses are
invented and not necessarily meant to reflect actual folk tunes. However, they do express the London spirit,
and this concept of an age-old urban musical vernacular. Here is a performance
of one of its movements, ironically performed by French vocal group, Les
Cris de Paris.
In the darkest of times, Laurence is heartened by memories of home in Cornwall, especially his family, including his piano-playing sister Grace. This was a time when broadcasted music was inexistent, live classical music was a luxury and playing a piano at home (itself afforded only by the better-off) had to make do instead of switching on Spotify. Amongst the pieces in Grace’s repertoire would likely have been one of the many sonatas of Muzio Clementi, an Italian-born composer who settled in London where he wrote and published music and built pianos. Here is one of his piano pieces, performed on a piano he constructed in the early 19th Century.
I end
this brief musical playlist with some sea shanties, of the type which Lawrence might have have
heard and enjoyed on his holidays back home in Cornwall from bustling London Town.
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