#i needed over 400 spins for arthur

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Doyenne ~ Part 7 (Final Chapter)

Warnings: Tommy Shelby x Reader

Summary: Tommy needs help from one of Birmingham’s most powerful underground gangs, the Hemlock Angels. Little does he know, he’s not the king of Birmingham after all.

Warnings: Murder, Illegal stuff (Is this even a warning for this show? Everything’s illegal) 

Word Count: 5867

A/N: Ahh! The last chapter!!! As I go back and re-read the last few chapters, I’m nervous Tommy has been a little OOC (I hadn’t watched the show in a few weeks). But oh well! Thank you for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy the finale! 

A/N 2: Also, all the monetary references have been adjusted for inflation. I think I forgot to mention it before. But, yeah. So 400 pounds was worth much more than 400 pounds now. 

___________________________________

Fuck Thomas Shelby. 

Fuck him and the way he treated everyone around him as if they were beneath him. Fuck him and the way he acted like people were expendable. Fuck him and the way he viewed everyone as pawns in his own overlord game of chess. Fuck him and the way he just blatantly called you out. Fuck him and the way he made you crave him.

Your encounter with him had been fulfilling in ways you hadn’t expected but it had also infuriated you, bringing back memories you’d struggled to suppress for the last two years. Memories brought out emotion and emotion was vulnerability and you had no room for that. But since Tommy had planted the seeds of memory in your mind, all you could do was feel the hidden rage and heartache you’d been concealing since Mason had screwed you over. 

Mason had been your lover years ago as the Hemlock Angels grew. He was a poor boy desperate for money and you were a poor entrepreneur desperate for people willing to do illegal work. A romance very quickly blossomed and he was the first and only man you could say you ever truly loved. You’re whole heart and soul was invested in him. 

He was tall and handsome with auburn hair that was slicked back on top but shook loose when he’d get into something he was doing - whether it was working hard loading crates, beating someone up who tried to cross you guys, or making love to you. He had a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose that gave his otherwise chiseled and angular face a soft touch. Toned muscles rippled across his perfect body and- 

Even today, after all this time, after all he’d done, you still felt love for him and you hated yourself for it. Once the Hemlock Angels took off as a whiskey exporter (though still a young and admittedly sloppy version of your current business in retrospect), he’d been caught at the docks with the cargo. He and the crates were seized by police and, with the promise of a very handsome monetary reward and legal immunity, he’d given the police the address of your distillery. Thankfully, you weren’t there when it had been raided but you lost everything you’d worked for because of him. ₤400 was worth your love and life’s work apparently. He took the money and ran off to Switzerland to avoid being drafted and lived off his money, leaving you to rebuild your empire. 

The betrayal had destroyed you, left you a complete shell of a person, incapable of trusting others, especially men. But it had allowed you to grow the Hemlock Angels. To avoid the pain, you threw yourself into rebuilding the distillery and developing more foolproof protocols for business operation. Never again would you make the mistake of allowing someone to double-cross you. It was why you conducted your business quietly, even quieter than, say, Alfie Solomons, who was also fairly underground as these sorts of businesses were concerned. 

Thomas Shelby made you feel things that Mason had made you feel and it terrified you to no end. The impending doom of repeated history loomed over you heavily, suffocating you and ripping your ability to breathe away. But it was a mistake that you kept feeling yourself drawn to making. 

Friday night had come around quickly and you found yourself awaiting Tommy in your main office yet again. The last thing that you wanted was to see him in this room, the ghost of his touch coming to haunt your skin. But no. This needed to happen here because meeting him on his turf gave him the upper hand. And now that Jameson and Brandon, the only thing you’d asked for in return for your work, had been killed, this was feeling more and more like a free favor. You refused to stake anything more than you already had on a free favor. 

“Y/N, Thomas Shelby is here for you.” Rita announced, peeking her head through the crack in the office door. You stiffened up, trying to play it off as just sitting up straighter but your prodege must have seen straight through you because she gave you a knowing glare. 

“See him in. Thank you.” Straight-forward, professional, and impersonal. That was going to be your new tactic. No more of the games you’d attempted to play with him, the same games that you were usually able to play successfully with everyone else. No more hot and cold, nice then firm. Tommy was able to worm his way through the small cracks of your professional wall to see the parts of even yourself that you tried to hide and that vulnerability stopped here. 

“Mr. Shelby,” You nodded in acknowledgement when he entered your office and you gestured to the chair across from you. Tommy’s eyes flashed with a hint of confusion. The entire energy of this interaction felt off already but nonetheless, he followed your gesture and sat down. 

You reached down and grabbed a leather bag from beneath your desk, dropping it on the table. Reaching up, you clicked the little locks on top open and pulled the material appart, revealing thousands of American bills, “Here is the final installment of the money. All the same as the first.” 

Tommy peeked into the bag, just to ensure that the money was in fact there. He lifted out a stack and flipped through them. They all appeared to be identical both to each other and to the last bag and if he hadn't known any better, he would think they were all legitimate notes. 

You leaned back and watched as he inspected the money, sure that he’d be satisfied with the work, before continuing, “There is a shipment going out to America tomorrow night. I need to know what it is that you’re shipping so I can be sure to leave enough room onboard.” 

The man shook his head, “I can’t tell you what it is that we’re shipping.”

“Then I can’t help you anymore.” You stated matter-of-factly, crossing your arms, “I need to know what I’m sticking my neck out for.” 

“Like I stuck my neck out for you?” 

“Yes.” Your eyes locked with his, refusing to back down or allow him to guilt trip you. 

Tommy sighed, “It’s snow.” 

Your eyebrow raised in surprise, “Didn’t have you pegged for a drug lord.” You actually were almost impressed. The man had range. 

“Just dabbling as you would put it,” he responded vaguely. 

So cocaine… It wasn’t the worst of the possibilities that you’d imagined. Ideas of dismembered body disposal or massive amounts of firearms or a million other worse things had occurred to you as possibilities. Of course, it depended on how much as well. “What’re the dimensions of the shipment?” 

“Half a cubic meter.” 

“Half a cubic fucking meter?!” You exclaimed, nearly choking on air, “How the hell did you come into that much blow?” 

Tommy put his hand up, “Now that I can’t tell you.” 

You nodded, “Alright, alright. I can respect that. A half cubic meter is an easy accommodation. Now, for the game plan…” 

Shipment days were anxiety producing enough as it was when you weren’t shipping thousands of pounds worth of cocaine along with it but tonight, your heart felt like it was in your throat. “Billy said the crates are all loaded at the distillery.” Rita announced to you, holding one ear to the receiving end of the phone and covering the mouthpiece with her hand. You finished loading your gun at the kitchen table inside of your shared house, slipping each bullet one by one into their slots with experienced skill.

“Good. Tell him we’ll meet him at the factory in forty-five minutes.” With a final spin of the chamber - a ritual you’d developed after telling yourself (with no real evidence) that it was good luck years ago - you clicked the metal pieces together and slid it into the holster at your side. 

“Forty five minutes? It’s only twenty minutes outside of town.” Rita questioned once she’d hung up the phone after relaying the information. 

You loaded Rita’s gun for her while you spoke and slid it across the table to her, “We are picking up Thomas and his brother Arthur to take them to the factory to load up their cargo.” 

She caught the gun and looked at you with wide cautious eyes, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Taking the Shelbys to the factory?” 

You sighed a knowing breath, “Yeah, I know. But he insisted that he remain in possession of the goods for as long as possible.” 

Rita’s face scrunched, “He knows he’s gonna have to relinquish possession at some point, right? What is he even shipping?” She slipped the gun into the pocket of her skirt. 

“Snow.” You confided with an impressed chuckle. 

She nearly snorted, “Really? Didn’t have him pegged for a drug lord.” 

A shocked laugh left your lips, “That’s what I said!”

Ten minutes later, you pulled up to the shipping yard that Tommy had said he’d be at with the cocaine and sure enough, there he was standing beside Arthur, both with cigarettes between their lips as they waited. In the shine of your headlights, you saw them both look over at you and move to pick up a wooden crate that was on the ground alongside an old military canvas bag. “Good evening, Y/N.” Tommy greeted politely once your tires came to a halt on the crunching gravel. 

“Good evening. This is it?” You confirmed once you got out of the car, pointing at the crate and bag full of money on the ground. 

He nodded, “Yes, this is it.” 

“Alright, we’ll just load those in the back seat for now,” You pointed back over your shoulder towards the black automobile behind you, “You must be Arthur. It’s nice to officially meet you. This is my right hand lady, Rita.” You introduced, first shaking his hand and then moving so Rita could as well. 

“Pleasure.” Arthur nodded to you both. 

“Well, should we get going?” 

Right on time, you arrived at the old factory you were meeting Billy, the man in charge of transport at the distillery, at. The factory was inconveniently located, even in its prime, set twenty minutes out of town, and had been abandoned since at least the 1880’s following a massive fire that had totally destroyed the structure and killed dozens of working men. The ghost stories surrounding it had kept it from ever being rebuilt and it had been abandoned for nearly half a century since, which now made it the perfect place for you to conduct business. 

“What the hell are we doin’ all the way out here?” Arthur asked when the car pulled up to the building. There had been nothing for miles and even now there was just your car and a large truck. 

After turning off the engine, you got out, the other three people in the car following, “I know it doesn’t look like… well… anything really. But trust me, this has worked well for us over the years.” 

“There’s no ports, no railroad stop. We had to take a dirt road to get here. How do you even move goods from this point?” Arthur questioned, skeptically. You could almost feel him reaching for his gun, convinced they were being ambushed or something and maybe, if you hadn’t been so eager to get this deal over with so you could stop whatever the hell was going on with Tommy, you would have dragged this out and messed with them a little bit. 

You pointed to the opposite side of the large factory - or what was left of it at least, “You can’t see it from here at night but there’s an old railroad track just on the other side of that wall. The train only comes through once every two weeks or so but thankfully it’s usually the same conductor. A few pounds buys us an unscheduled stop on his trips down to Gloucester where they load everything up onto a cargo ship and haul it off to America.” 

You were proud of your little system you’d developed. It had allowed you to grow into an international exporter and was the main source of your success. Tommy had seemed impressed last night when you developed the plan and explained everything to him then and now Arthur seemed to match his affections. 

The loud closing of a door drew all of your attention to the large truck. Billy, a stout, acne scarred man in his late forties, walked towards your group from the driver’s side of the truck. “Y/N! Will said the train is runnin’ a little late but should be ‘ere by 10:30.” He informed you in his thick Irish accent once he made it to you guys. A few other of your men jumped out of the passenger side but hung around the truck instead of approaching. 

Rita flipped out her pocket watch and checked the time, “We got about fifteen minutes then.” 

The next fifteen minutes were passed with pleasantries and conversation. Arthur never quite let his guard down and seemed on edge but had relaxed significantly. Honestly, you had as well. Something about tonight felt different than usual. There wasn’t the constant paranoia that the Shelbys were out to double cross you tonight you. Perhaps it was a mistake but, for once, you felt almost comfortable in his presence. 

The train came by right at 10:30, it’s crawling pace coming to a screeching halt with a loud hiss of steam. Billy went up to one of the old metal train cars and undid the locks. The door was slid open to reveal an empty space. “Alrighty, we’ll just move the boxes from the truck to here and then we’ll be on our way.” 

The other men who chose to stay by the truck had already lifted the canvas cover off the top and were carrying huge crates one by one, full with copious bottles of your illegal whiskey, to fill the train car. You stood off to the side with Rita, Thomas, and Arthur while your men worked, waiting patiently as they unloaded the truck. 

“Alright, Mr. Shelby. We have the space for your cargo now.” Billy invited, hands outstretched to take what Tommy had to ship. You noticed a nervous glance from the crate to Billy’s hands from Arthur. 

Tommy at least pretended that he trusted Billy, “Y/N told me that you travel with the shipment all the way to America,” He took out a picture from his pocket, “This is the man that will be awaiting your arrival there. Pass the goods off to him and only him, understand?” 

Billy nodded, inspecting the picture of the man before folding it into his coat, “Yes, sir.” 

Finally, Arthur relinquished possession of the cocaine to your man and he set it carefully on one of your boxes. After packing the duffel bag full of money, Billy hopped inside and the door was slid shut. 

The other men took the truck back to the distillery and you turned to Tommy, “I’ll call you when I get the call that it’s arrived in America. It usually takes between seven to ten days, depending on the weather.” 

 “Thank you. Perhaps, we could get a drink to celebrate.” He suggested as if you hadn’t had sex out of spite the other night. 

“What is there to celebrate?” You avoided the invitation. 

He gestured around, “A successful business transaction?”

You cocked an eyebrow at him, “I feel like you’d use anything as an excuse to drink. I have a hunch whiskey flows through your veins in place of blood.” 

He shrugged, “Nobody needs an excuse to drink.” 

“Fair point.” Internally, you smacked yourself but you ended up nodding a reluctant agreement, “Alright, one drink.” 

Tommy gave you a satisfied look that could have almost resembled a smile, “But this time I want to show you one of my establishments.” 

Thankfully, Tommy had agreed to your suggestion of Arthur and Rita joining the pair of you as well, using them as a buffer to ensure no other mistakes were made with the man who seemed to be your kryptonite. You’d taken everyone to the Garrison, a pub that you’d known to be under the control of the Peaky Blinders for the last several years, right after all the work at the factory had been finished. 

Tommy held the door for you as you passed through, Arthur taking over to hold it for Rita. Wordlessly, Tommy held up four fingers before ushering you away to a small booth in the back, along with his brother and Rita. All four of you slid along the cushion seats, making small talk yet again. Thankfully, now, after having been around each other for the last few hours, it was much less awkward and everyone was open to more conversation than initially. 

Arthur excused himself after a moment and when a poker game opened up between some of the other Blinders, Rita, an secret card shark, disappeared to swindle some poor, unsuspecting men of a few pounds. You and Tommy found yourselves alone, exactly what you’d hoped to avoid. 

“Sure she should be playing?” Tommy pointed over to Rita was his mostly empty glass of whiskey. You followed his gaze to see her with a disappointed look, one of the guys sliding his hand to take what you assumed were her chips. 

You snorted, “Oh, I’m sure. It’s your boys that should be looked after. Give ‘em a few more rounds. She’ll be leaving with most of their money.” 

Tommy almost smiled and nodded, “Aye,” He paused before beginning again, “Y’know, I can’t help but feel a little guilty. You helped us out with a lot and you didn’t exactly get your end of the bargain.” 

You inhaled deeply and looked away from him, bringing back up that professional front that you’d felt slowly slipping away throughout the night, “It happens sometimes I suppose. I thought about asking for more but a deal’s a deal and unlike some others, I don’t like to change my conditions once they’ve been agreed upon.” 

“And what is it that you would have asked for had you been one to change deals?” He leaned forward, listening intently to your next words. 

“Is Thomas Shelby feeling guilty for taking more than he gave?” You asked in shock, “I wouldn’t even do that.” Your tone quickly became jestful. “No, I’m only joking. You did end up coming to the rescue the other day which is more than others would have done.” 

Instead of seeming satisfied with your answer, though, he only raised his eyebrows and repeated the question, “What would you ask for?” 

Something told you that he was offering you new circumstances, an extra favor. Who did that? In this line of work, who knew what kind of horrible request would be made? 

What did you want? It was a good question. But did you have to answer honestly? Because an honest answer might jeopardize your life’s work and maybe even your life itself with some people. Tommy hadn’t double crossed you thus far though… 

After a long pause, you licked your lips, “A deal.” 

“Another deal?” He questioned curiously. 

You nodded, a small smirk on your face, “Yes. A deal between the Peaky Blinders and the Hemlock Angels. Business partners and an agreement to aid each other when needed. Neither of us offer the same services or sell the same goods, with the exception of the Garrison and my little establishment, so there’s no need to worry about losing business.” 

Tommy cocked an eyebrow, “I thought you didn’t trust me. A double crosser, I believe you called me when we first met?”

“I said that’s what other people had called you.” You defended, remembering your first interaction well. “But I must be honest, I had a hunch they were correct.” 

“Then why trust me now?” 

“I don’t,” You answered short and honest, “But I want to despite everything telling me not to. I figure this way, I can keep an eye on you.” You threatened in a joking tone, although you really weren’t joking all that much. As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Or, more fittingly for your scenario, keep your friends close and your acquaintance/ occasional hook up/ business partner who might backstab you closer. 

It took only a few moments for Tommy to weigh out the decision before nodding, “Alright, a deal then.” 

You raised your glass to him and he mirrored the action, a slight ting as your glasses tapped against each other in a celebration of a new alliance. The next twenty minutes or so was full of small talk, something that Tommy never found himself doing with anyone, so why was it so easy with you? Every now and then, there’s be grumbles of anger from the table playing poker as new opponents who insisted they could beat Rita lost a larger and larger fortune with each round. 

A quiet ding as the door opened made you twist your neck, curiously checking to see who came in. Then your heart stopped. “Fuck-” Your heart was caught in your throat and you wanted to vomit. 

Mason. 

He looked almost identical to how he did two years ago, just with a few more age lines. Time had been less kind to him than it had to you. He entered the room with a large casual air, surely unknowing of your presence. 

Tommy noticed your sudden panic when you uncharacteristically sunk into the the booth, hiding your face from the red-headed man who had entered the pub, “So that’s the man, eh?” 

You covered your face which had turned a shade somewhere between pink with embarrassment and red from rage. But nevertheless, you nodded, still side eyeing Mason from between your fingers as he ordered a glass of gin. 

“Gin?” Tommy noticed judgmentally, “Drinks like a woman.” 

Normally, under any other circumstances, you would have made some snarky comment about using your gender as an insult but you appreciated the effort to insult this man he’d never met, simply because he’d wronged you. “So what happened?” He inquired. 

You sighed, finally sitting up straight, just keeping your eyes on the table, “My ex. We were practically on the verge of marriage. He helped me start up the Hemlock Angles before he sold us out to the cops for a few hundred pounds. Ruined us for months.” 

Tommy listened to the story intently, watching the man out of the corner of his eye and quickly noticing that he seemed to have noticed your presence. At first, he glanced over nervously towards you before deciding to approach, a decision that Tommy had a hunch was the wrong one. 

“Four o’clock.” Tommy mumbled over the rim of his glass. Your eyes immediately shot to four o’clock to see Mason walking over, all too confident for your liking, a confidence you had every intention of destroying. 

“Y/-” He began, only getting half way through your name before you interrupted. 

“You have a lot of fucking nerve showing your face ‘round here.” You hissed, venom dripping from every word.

Mason put his hands up in defense. Those same hands that used to be calloused from work and you’d seen covered in blood looked as if they hadn’t so much as lifted a piece of wood in months. “I didn’t come looking for a fight. Just wanted to see how you were doing.” 

“You’re lucky I don’t shoot you dead where you stand right now you pathetic sack of shit.” Tommy sat back and watched as you destroyed this man with your words and he could only imagine the other stories about him you had. Your viper tongue had him on edge in the best possible ways. 

“I-” 

“No. You’re nothing.” You interrupted. 

He sighed, “I wanted to say I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for what I did! I miss us. I miss you.” He reached down, trying to take your hand, but you snatched it away. He looked down and eyed Tommy for half a second, trying to determine whether your relationship was romantic or platonic. 

You laughed a sadistic laugh, “You’re not sorry and you don’t miss me. You ran out of money didn’t you? Well I hate to tell you but you disappearing was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me. I run Birmingham now and it’s all thanks to you. Now get the fuck out of my city.” 

Then for a second, there was a brief flash of danger in his eyes, that same danger that you’d fallen in love with. But this time, that anger was directed at you. His fist slammed down hard on the table in front of you, just barely missing your face, but you didn’t even flinch, “Listen here,-” 

“She said fuck off, mate.” Tommy interjected finally. Both of you looked over at him and you could’ve sworn you almost forgot he was here. 

Mason snorted, “‘N who the hell are you?” 

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that you respect her wishes and kindly fuck off.” Tommy’s voice was calm, much calmer than yours, but still holding a very sincere threat. 

Mason looked between the two of you and chuckled as if he’d been the one who was wronged in all of this before turning away, like he was trying to laugh it off nonchalantly. All of a sudden, he drew his arm back and began to swing his down onto Tommy. Before the blow could connect, you had your pistol out in a second and pulled the trigger. 

The loud bang drew several startled yells from around the bar and everything got quiet as they looked at your booth to see Mason’s body crumble face first on top of the table, lifeless. When the realization of what you’d done hit you, your mouth fell open in shock. “Holy shit…” You whispered to yourself. 

Tommy had jumped when the gunshot went off but now looked just as surprised as you did to see Mason lying dead across the table between you, “I really didn’t think you had it in you.” He really didn’t. Sure, he’d seen you shoot Sabini’s men but the way you looked at and talked about Mason, he assumed it was one of those loves you’d never be able to harm no matter the damage they’d caused to you. But, boy, was he blissfully surprised. 

All the Blinders in the building, including two of the Shelby brothers, Finn and Arthur, jumped up, guns pointed and ready to take down the attacker. Tommy held up his hand, “It’s alright, boys! Hold your fire!” 

You stood up to avoid the blood that was now dripping off the table and onto where you sat, “‘m sorry.” You apologized for the mess but Tommy shook his head. 

“Don’t be. He looked like he had it comin’.” With a wave of his hand, a few Blinders that you didn’t know the names of stood up from their seats around the poker table and walked up, lifting the body off the table. You weren’t quite sure what to do or say. You’d actually shot him. You killed Mason. He wasn’t the first person you’d killed but that didn’t mean that you enjoyed doing it. Unless it was in a moment of grave danger, watching the life drain from someone’s eyes as they crumpled into a bloody heap never ceased to make you momentarily sick, thoughts of the family you may have ripped apart destroying you. 

But you knew Mason didn’t have any family. The only person you’d hurt was him. You’d freed yourself. 

You looked up at him as he now stood beside you and saw that he was gazing down at the body and then glanced over to you, nothing but pure impressed admiration on his face.  

Tommy liked that you were able to take care of yourself and that you spoke honestly. It made him feel like perhaps this deal that you two had struck up would prove to be beneficial and trust based and that, just maybe, if things went well, perhaps the two of you could build your own empire together. 

Tommy had always been rather daft (or perhaps was that he just didn’t care) when it came to other people’s emotions and he was well aware of this flaw. But now, it was like he could see every inch of confliction on your face. “You alright?” He asked when he’d noticed your eyes hadn’t left the body, even when the men’s forms had covered it. 

His voice shook you out of your daze and you blinked yourself into clarity, “Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.” You turned away from the table to face the open room of the bar. Rita stood at the table, her chair tipped over on the ground behind her. She looked from you to Mason’s body that was being carried out back and back to you with a look of shock plastered on her face. The only other person who knew as much as you did about that situation was her. 

You walked up to the bar and threw a few coins on the bar, “I don’t care what it is, just make it strong.” 

“You don’t have to pay.” Tommy insisted but you ignored him, leaving the coins on the bar and taking the mystery drink that had been poured. Walking out the front door, Tommy trailed close behind.  

Finally, you parked yourself against the outer wall of the Garrison and downed the whole glass in one go, the fiery liquid burning a trail down your throat. Whatever the drink was, you had no idea. You set the glass down on the ground and lit a cigarette to replace the glass rim. 

Nobody spoke for a moment, until a small group of cops came running by. You tried your hardest to look innocent as they stopped and eye Tommy knowingly. “Tommy-” One of them started in a thick cockney accent. 

Tommy shook his head and pointed down the road, “Wasn’t us this time. Came from down the street.” 

It was clear from the looks on all three of the cops' faces that none of them believed a word that came out of his mouth but they weren’t about to cross Thomas Shelby. “There was a bit of a commotion from up there earlier before the shot.” You tried to reinforce the lie as smoothly and believably as possible. 

The cop looked a little more convinced when you agreed with Tommy and nodded before the trio ran off down the road looking for another gunman. This exact situation was why you didn’t get involved with the cops because they’re not going to believe you when you need to lie about something like this. 

As time passed, you became more calm, “I really am sorry about this, Tommy.” 

“I’ve never had a woman shoot someone ‘cause I was ‘bout to be punched. It was quite attractive, I can’t lie.” Tommy lit a cigarette as well, standing beside you, almost blocking the activity of the street in what seemed like an attempt to protect you.

A smile cracked on your face when you chuckled a little, the constant matter-of-factness of his tone making almost everything he said sound like business, even when he was complimenting you, “Well, like you said, it had been a long time coming.” 

You felt like you were being dramatic. Wasn’t killing just part of this gig afterall? “Y’know, I swear I can usually shoot someone without breaking down.” You tried to defend yourself with a weak laugh. 

Tommy shook his head, “It’s not always easy, I know. My hands get the shakes at night. Just because it’s part of the deal doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it.” He took a deep breath before continuing, “You know, I haven’t felt the way I feel around you in a long time.” 

His confession was simple and, while a small part of you wanted to smack him for his terrible timing, a larger part of you felt the same way. “Neither have I. I’m used to being airtight but you make me weak… and I hate it.” You looked away from him, avoiding his deep, knowing eyes. 

“Whoever said that this had to be weakness?” He inquired, a hand running along your arm. 

A scoff left your lips as you rolled your eyes, “And you don’t believe that romance is weakness?” It wasn’t until the words left your mouth that you remembered he’d lost Grace and a pang of guilt struck your chest for bringing up the memory. But you also weren’t about to revoke the question. It just further illustrated your fear.

Tommy looked at the ground a for moment, remembering what it was like to hold the love of his life in his arms as she died, knowing it was fault, and thinking about how it felt to relive that pain every time he looked at a portrait of her or his own son. 

Finally, he nodded, “We’ve both lost people we loved but we also still have people we care about, whether they’re family or friends. A lesson that’s been very difficult for me to learn over the last decade or so is that it is impossible to completely rid yourself of all weaknesses.” 

Again, an almost humorous comment coming from Thomas Shelby, who everyone had known to be as secure and weakness-free as you were. You thought about his words, though, and tried to convince yourself that this was a bad idea - that an alliance and romance with Thomas Shelby was only sure to blow up eventually. 

“So?” He urged, his voice low and gravelly, after a few moments of silence. 

Silently, you found yourself trailing your eyes from his chest that was straight ahead up to his lips and then to his eyes. You took just a step closer, closing the already thin gap between the two of you and placed your hand around his neck, slowly coming to lean up on your toes. The movement was slow, giving him more than enough time to protest or pull away from you but he didn’t. 

Tommy’s hand lightly landed itself on your hip and he leaned down, meeting your lips in the middle. Unlike the last time your lips had met, this was soft and gentle, a side of Tommy that you had no idea even existed anymore. 

The two of you stayed like that for a while before finally parting your lips. Your faces still rested just beside each other’s, bodies close enough to feel the other’s warmth through the cool night. Your eyes slid open finally to see Tommy already looking down at you, waiting to see if this was a kiss of new beginnings or of closure. 

“Don’t make me regret risking everything for you.”

_________

Taglist: 

@kiaoizz 

@sweatydragoncloudknight

@hinagiku0

@stressedandbandobessed7771

#Peaky Blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders smut #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinder headcanon #thomas shelby #Tommy Shelby #tommy shelby imagines #tommy shelby x reader #doyenne

[reading-while-queer]

Less, Andrew Sean Greer

Rating: Great Read Genre: Realism, Comedy Representation: -Gay main character -Gay and lesbian supporting cast Trigger warnings: Anti-Asian racism, Medical emergency (Stroke), Age gaps in romantic relationships  Note: Less is not YA, and contains depictions of sex

Less is a comedy about a hapless gay author rapidly approaching 50, who, when he is invited to his ex-boyfriend’s wedding, decides to accept every invitation to speak, teach, and attend writer conferences and retreats on his desk.  While Freddy gets married, Arthur Less is on a tour around the world - it’s not that he’s scared to attend, it’s that he’s much, much too busy.

This tour is not a glamorous one, and not even a tour that Arthur Less finds himself qualified to go on.  Arthur was the much younger paramour of the famous poet Robert Brownburn; as his paramour, Arthur grew up on the periphery of historic literary achievement - the poet, and his friends, are a winking reference to the Black Mountain school.  Arthur Less himself, however, was never one of them - at those parties of literary greats, he always found himself in the kitchen with the wives.

Even after making a name for himself on his own merit as a novelist, Arthur Less is best remembered for his long ago connection to Robert - or that’s how Arthur would tell it.  As he progresses on his odyssey around the world, however, his own work precedes him.  Everywhere he lands, someone has read his novel.  He is well-renowned in Germany (he blames the translation into German for unjustly elevating his work).  He wins an award in Italy.  Travelling companions on a vacation in Morocco are familiar with his work.

His work, as it turns out, is a prophecy for his life.  Arthur’s best-known novel is a gay rendition of The Odyssey - and now, Arthur Less finds himself on his own odyssey, always uncomfortable wherever his plane lands, always unlucky, but always learning about himself, too.  The comparison is subtle, never acknowledged, which I found very clever.  The ancient Greek tradition of dramatic irony plays a role: the “news about Freddy” haunts Arthur, and while connoisseurs of romantic comedy can easily guess what that news might be, Arthur always stops his friends right before they tell him anything about his ex’s wedding.  He doesn’t want to know.

Less managed to surprise more than one laugh out of me; the novel is a comedy first, an examination of the writing world second, and an examination of the self third.  Far be it from me to recommend a novel where a middle-aged White man goes on a privileged birthday vacation to Morocco to find himself - yet, hear me out.  The point of Less isn’t that Arthur is owed an explanation for his life and gleefully finds it through White American excess.  Instead, when Arthur complains of his White middle-aged woes to a stranger he meets, she tells him exactly why no one is interested in his new book.  There is something very cathartic in reading about a middle-aged White author learning that his oeuvre of depressing, masturbatory novels that center middle-aged White authors is stale.

Less was almost one of those novels - Less is set up to be one of those novels, and would have been, except that it twists towards self-deprecating comedy (that, in a way, is more honest self-love than any masturbatory novel about and by a White male author).  The scales fall away from Arthur’s eyes.  He learns of his reputation in the writing world as a “Bad Gay” and grapples with what that even means.   He is not glamorous; his struggles with social anxiety, his embarrassing choices in boutique fashion, and his God-given bad luck put a stop to any chance of Arthur having an obnoxious self-importance, that’s for sure. But rather than wallow in self-pitying privilege, Less turns it around on him: Arthur learns something.  He realizes that he can choose to see his life as a slapstick comedy instead of a tragedy.

However, Less is a comedy with something to say, underneath the goofy, over-the-top slapstick.  Aging, especially, is at the forefront, as Arthur’s 50th birthday looms nearer.  Arthur has been the 20-year-old lover to a man twice his age, and the inverse, the 40-year-old who took Freddy as a lover when he was fresh out of school.  Depicting relationships with a large age gap from both sides, Less has something interesting and funny to say about White male privilege, aging as a gay man, and love, and I recommend it on those grounds.

Now, the racism.  Part of the trouble with a highly symbolic novel, especially if that novel is a comedy, is that anyone and everything in the path of the protagonist is the set-up for a joke.  Which becomes complicated when your character is travelling from Mexico to Germany to Italy to France to Morocco to India to Japan.  Not every joke is a good joke; even jokes that are purportedly at Arthur’s expense drag the cultures of people of color into the mix.  Much more-so than in Germany, Italy, or France, Arthur becomes the hapless victim of non-white culture in Morocco, India, and Japan.  Perhaps it is meant to be a clever comment on how much of a fool Arthur is, that he can’t adapt to anything other than the Western cultures he’s been exposed to, but the joke just doesn’t quite come off.

In Morocco, a hostile desert sojourn on camel-back defeats all Arthur’s White travelling companions one by one, first by hangover, then food-sickness, then migraine.  This section of the book was probably the least racist of Arthur’s slow trek east.  The fact that Arthur’s travelling companions drop like flies, though suspicious, can be interpreted as a criticism of White fragility.  For example, Arthur notes the finery set up in a large, luxurious tent for him and his travelling companions. There are little mirrors sewn into the bedspread, and he wonders whether that is a performance of Otherness for the White American tourists who delight in such novelty.  Yet, even as Morocco bows and scrapes to accommodate (seen also in Mohammed’s mastery of English, French, Arabic, and German) the fragility of the tourists is too great, even to be catered to.  They drop like flies.

In India and Japan, it’s harder to spin the depictions of these countries so charitably.  In India, Arthur complains incessantly of his own cultural illiteracy - blaming India, of course.  India is portrayed as dangerously overrun with wild animals that might attack you in the night, feral dogs, and vermin that are exterminated via snake.  Arthur learns some humility, talking to the woman who runs a Christian retreat there - and Arthur’s thoughts on Christianity in India versus his own American experience are interesting - but the authorial impulse to criticize ends up swerving from slapstick comedy into mean-spiritedness when it comes to portraying daily life in India.  Arthur’s misfortunes there, while intended to comment on his bad luck, end up commenting on Indian culture instead.

This is true for the depiction of Japan as well.  Arthur goes to Kyoto to review several kaiseki dining experiences for a magazine.  When he is served something unfamiliar, it’s a roll of the eyes - “just my luck.”  Yet the joke doesn’t land as it would have if Arthur was served something unfamiliar in an American restaurant - in Japan, eating traditional fare with traditional ceremony, his dislike comes off as bratty Americanism.  When a 400 year old sliding wood door gets stuck, trapping Arthur in his room unless he breaks through the paper wall and ruins a centuries-old piece of art in the process, the symbolic meaning is clear; Arthur needs to escape the rut of The American Novelist, no matter how old, storied, and beloved the tradition he is breaking.  Yet by using Japan as the backdrop of this revelation, Less (accidentally?) sets up Japan’s cultural legacy as a parallel to his own issues; a 400 hundred year door that jams on unlucky Arthur calls Japan foolish and old-fashioned in the same breath as it ridicules our protagonist.  But then again...isn’t that the perfect meta-narrative for a book by a White male American novelist criticizing White male American novelists?  Parsing what is accidental versus what is satirical - and whether Greer has any right to be satirical about how White authors use race as set pieces for stories about White characters... That’s a complicated question.

My read of the above is perhaps the least charitable interpretation, and I feel compelled to say that despite it all, I don’t regret reading Less - I enjoyed it, and I think a lot of readers, especially those who write themselves, will find a lot to think about.  I will also recommend against the audio-book for this one; absolutely anything sounds one hundred times more insidious when the Asian characters are read in a voice that sounds like it was plucked from the lips of a yellow-face wearing “comedian” from the 1970s - think Peter Sellers in Murder By Death.  It’s hard to differentiate how much racism is inflection or text.

It isn’t really my place to recommend a book with a little (or a lot, depending on your read) of anti-Asian racism.  I was able to read through it with a wince, blame most of it on the atrocious audio-book, and enjoy the merits that Less has to bring to the table.  But that begs the question: if a book is definitively less racist than, say, Harry Potter, but doesn’t have the (rapidly deteriorating, mind) cultural goodwill of a beloved multi-billion dollar children’s series...is it okay to promote it as a problematic but enjoyable piece of writing? It’s not my place to answer that question, but I would enjoy hearing from others about their take on Less.

For more from Andrew Sean Greer, check out his website here.

#great read #less #andrew sean greer #realism #comedy #gay #reviews only #not ya

[freddielocks]

Here's part 2: now we turn our attention to the rarest albums in my collection! The values are higher, of course, but twelve tracks will generally be worth more than two!

An honourable mention goes to the Who, with their album My Generation on Brunswick. Despite this technically being the most expensive on the list at a colossal £600 book and £825 maximum sale value, there is a serious gulf between unplayed pristine copies and copies of any lower calibre - it isn't a true rarity. At any rate my copy has no cover.

10) Kevin Ayers - Joy Of A Toy

Label: Harvest, cat. SHVL 763

Year: 1969, 10 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £240

Book value: £150

Paid: £40 in Plastic Wax Records

Notes: couple of scratches but overall a nice playing copy. Cover good. 1st pressing with no EMI box on the label.

Kevin Ayers was a charismatic singer with a demure voice, involved in the Canterbury Scene and the genesis of progressive rock, being a founder member of the Soft Machine. Joy Of A Toy, his first solo record, is a wonderfully anachronistic blast of poppy psychedelia, with not many standout songs but designed to be listened to all the way through. Nevertheless, swinging opener 'Song For Insane Times' and the unsettling 'children's' song 'Lady Rachel' are my highlights.

9) John And Yoko - The Wedding Album

Label: Apple, cat. SAPCOR 11

Year: 1969, 2 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £259

Book price: £600 (bear in mind a complete set has never sold)

Paid: £15, from a 'friend' needing money for a night out!

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's marriage in Gibraltar, for various reasons I can't remember, and their 'Bed Peace' protest were documented in this lavish package. Musically, the album is truly bizarre. The first side is 22 minutes of the pair's heartbeats as they shout each other's names in various ways (yeah) and the flip is a sound collage of a bunch of recordings and interviews made in Amsterdam during Bed Peace. I wanted a copy during my phase of intrigue into the Beatles' experimental solo works, and somehow I got one!

Out of the full package that originally came with the LP, I own the gatefold sleeve that held the record, the large wedding photos, the cartoon poster and the booklet of press clippings. The cardboard in there may be original too, and there's a random photo of John Lennon I was given free at a record fair once. The box is not, it was lovingly replicated from a Reader's Digest box set of show songs. Original boxes had a facsimile wedding certificate glued to the inside. I am sadly missing the 'Bagism' plastic bag, the pop up cutout of the wedding cake and the small strip of passport photos. What a package - it must have cost a lot at the time!

8) Blonde On Blonde - Contrasts

Label: Pye, cat. NSPL.18288

Year: 1969, 12 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £290

Book price: £175

Paid: £12 in Plastic Wax

Notes: I only have half the cover! Clearly someone wanted to have the pretty girl on their wall... The LP is in playable condition. It took some cleaning though.

This Welsh outfit came at the beginning of progressive rock, and the LP is surprisingly assured and complex straight from the bold opener 'Ride With Captain Max'. Hard rock, baroque stately ballads and in between are all present, with other highlights being the sitar-drenched 'Spinning Wheel' (a cover of Blood Sweat and Tears), the sneeringly humorous 'Conversationally Making The Grade' (I love the line 'America's gonna buy us, turn us into a national park') and the wistful closer 'Jeanette Isabella'.

7) Second Hand - Reality

Label: Polydor, cat. 583 045

Year: 1968, 10 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £295

Book value: £200

Paid: £50 on eBay

Notes: second press, with labels crediting Second Hand instead of their first name, The Moving Finger (also the name of the band who released the gorgeous 'Pain of My Misfortune' single which I'm still looking for). The cover is deliberately 'worn' as a pun on the band name, and the vinyl is not perfect but really nice.

Again, Second Hand were at the forefront of progressive rock, miles ahead of many more popular acts. Band leader Ken Elliott was a keyboard wizard as well as lead vocalist, and the rest of the band were also brilliant musicians, augmented by the cello and flute of Chris Williams on certain tracks. The album has a loose concept about a clown, Denis James, whose life hits difficulties and culminates in his eventual suicide in the bath. The first side contains many brilliant vignettes, with tough rockers alongside orchestrated psychedelia, culminating in the woozy and fatigued 'The World Will End Yesterday'. However, be ready to turn it over. There are four tracks on the second side, the first being a cheery entree to the Denis James character. What follows is a devastating emotional journey that grabs you by the neck, with heavy murk contrasting the swooning cello arrangements and jazzy flute. This culminates in the Bath Song, and the death of D.J. Brutal, and has to be heard to be experienced. I thought it was even more chilling as I was told Bob Gibbons, the lead guitarist, killed himself nine years later. However that's a stupid myth for hype, unfortunately it was an accidental electrocution.

6) The Graham Bond Organization - Sound Of '65

Label: Columbia, cat. 33SX 1711

Year: 1965 (obviously!), 12 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £300

Book value: £400

Paid: around £40 in Plastic Wax

Notes: looks much rougher than it plays. First press with '33SX' in the catalogue number.

Graham Bond, a former radiator salesman, was an amazing saxophone player and keyboardist (and decent singer) who cut his teeth alongside the now legendary Don Rendell. Also in the Organization, the band he formed after leaving Rendell's Quintet, was the other great saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, and two future members of supergroup Cream, bassist and singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. The album is classy jazzy R&B, covering many well known standards with a few originals in there. 'Baby Be Good To Me' is my standout pick, a scurrying shuffle with darting saxophone and cool organ fills driving it along.

5) The Wailers - Catch A Fire

Label: Island, cat. ILPS 9241

Year: 1973, 9 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £350

Book price: £150

Paid: £12 in Plastic Wax

Notes: the upper part of the cover, which swung off as if a 'Zippo' lighter, is missing. The LP is very scratched, but is the original pink rim 1st pressing.

Bob Marley and The Wailers made this iconic album debut in 1973, starting the ball rolling on their incredible popularity. A classic of the new reggae sound straight from the darkly grooving opener 'Concrete Jungle'. Nuff said really! Check it out, you'll enjoy it.

4) The Graham Bond Organization - There's a Bond Between Us

Label: Columbia, cat. 33SX 1750

Year: 1965, 12 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £395

Book price: £400

Paid: £35 from Plastic Wax

Notes: slightly shabbier than the other GBO LP (they were bought together). Still a solid player.

This second album sees the GBO expand their sound, and is arguably the stronger of the two. Not only does Jack Bruce's suave and strong voice get more of an outing, but the three instrumentals make it impossible to sit down listening to the album! Have a dance to the punchy opener 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?' and listen to the Eastern-flavoured Baker-led 'Camels and Elephants'.

3) The Kinks - Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire

Label: Pye, cat. NPL.18317

Year: 1969, 12 tracks

Highest on Discogs: £421

Book price: £150

Paid: £20 in Plastic Wax

Notes: much rarer mono issue. Comes with original Queen Victoria lyric insert, but cover and record are very battered. 'Victoria' will not play as there is something up with the grooves. Maybe an industrial clean is in order.

This album, the last in the series of roughly conceptual Kinks LPs, is a delightfully quirky musical take on end-of-empire Britain, taking various melodic cues from music of the time and combining them with distinctly British themes and some serious danceability. One could argue that 'Victoria' invented pub rock. 'Brainwashed' is a cool mod dancer and 'Shangrila', the second single from the album, is a complex ode to humble home life and a shrewd observation on class. The hits and commercial success was gone by now, but is now the most acclaimed part of the Kinks' oeuvre.

2) Trees - On The Shore

Label: CBS, cat. S 64168

Year: 1970, 10 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £483

Book price: £400

Paid: £12 in Plastic Wax

Notes: two large grievous scratches on the A-side - but they barely even sound, it's a great player!

Acid folk was practically invented by Trees, who had already laid down the wonderful Garden of Jane Delawney LP. The characteristic soaring vocals of Celia Humphris delightfully interplayed with fuzzy rock to create a new exciting edge on traditional folk songs and some startling original material. The short opener 'Soldiers Three' signals their intent clearly. Their arrangement of the infamous folk ballad 'Streets of Derry' lends it an excellent charging energy, but arguably the standouts are the ominous and cryptic 'Fool' and the soaring and energetic 'Murdoch', showing staggering songcraft. As if the album didn't have more than enough going for it, 'Geordie' was sampled by Gnarls Barkley on their track 'St. Elsewhere', leading to a renaissance of the band's work. Despite appearing on numerous samplers put out by the record label, Trees never became a commercial success, a fact which boggles the mind.

1) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

Label: Track, cat. 613008/9

Year: 1968, 16 tracks

Highest Discogs sale: £645

Book price: £300

Paid: I will never know!

Notes: second press with white text on the sleeve instead of turquoise. Yes, stupid things like that make a difference. One record contains Sides 1 and 4, the other sides 2 and 3, which isn't standard.

Arguably Hendrix's masterpiece, this album needs little introduction, mixing psychedelia, jazz, R&B and even more into a great cosmic double album. Just listen to '1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be') and you'll understand the sheer power and weight of this record. Glorious from start to finish.

Thanks again!

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

THE ESSAYIST IS MANY THINGS: egotistic is definitely one of them. This cuts both ways, however. Essays can be focused on the writerly self, but they can also offer an escape. As Montaigne said well over 400 years ago, one gets rather wrapped up in oneself. “I have no more made my book than my book has made me — a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life.” Yet the essayist also retreats. Emerson saw his reflections as solitude, where “all mean egotism vanishes” and he becomes “a transparent eyeball,” a “nothing.” The essay is much more than that too, of course. A riff or a sally, a fight or a laugh. A journey, a ramble, a wandering about. Beyond such meanderings — the digressions on which the essay thrives — the nature of the form is itself formless. It might be “short or long,” as Woolf wrote in 1922, “serious or trifling, about God and Spinoza,” or — recalling Samuel Butler — “about turtles and Cheapside.” But so often, as she wrote on Montaigne, the essay turns back to oneself, “the greatest monster and miracle in the world.”

Fast-forward almost a century and we have Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant by Joel Golby, which takes up (and takes down) his own monstrous ego with delicious panache. You probably know of his work. He’s a crusading hero for twenty- and thirtysomething UK renters who frequently lambastes the hellish property market in his regular “London Rental Opportunity of the Week” column for Vice. From an exposé of a toilet jammed inside a shower at the foot of the bed, to a Beckettian litany going over and over the nature of a bedsit with multiple sinks but no adequate space for a mattress, Golby wages a single-handed war against that peculiar subspecies of human: the landlord. He’s massively popular, not least with those of us destined to forever move from one overpriced grief hole to the next. Golby does absurdist humor on other themes, too. A piece asking questions about why Pete Doherty was seen “aggressively eating” a massive breakfast outside a greasy spoon in Margate; 101 ways to ruin a party; “deep dives” into property TV shows; the likelihood of certain celebrities eating worms if they go on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! One recent column on “The New Rules of Being a Millennial” is both caustic and community-building. If Lena Dunham (as a “voice of her generation” — that now somewhat hackneyed joke in Girls) was a member of the precariat and grew up in Chesterfield, she might turn phrases like this:

The problem with the “us” thing is that we (Us) do not have a collective term for ourselves which isn’t wildly inaccurate or painfully cringey. “Hipster” suggests a level of effort that I think we’re all big enough to admit we don’t subscribe to. Does “millennials” work? Sort of, but not. It’s too broad. Plus, “millennial” is more-or-less a slur these days, isn’t it. Nobody self-identifies as one. It’s just something your dad calls people with university debt. It’s nothing. The people I’m talking about are the ones who know what De School is and don’t really know what a “James Arthur” is.

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant is a gathering of 21 new essays and three updated pieces, and arrives at a time when emerging writers are voicing their histories and outlooks in hilarious and poignant ways that befit modern anxieties. The Chicago-based blogger-turned-writer Samantha Irby’s debut collection, Meaty, and her second, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, both offer takes on bad sex, Crohn’s disease, life as a woman in her mid-30s, loss, and more, and recent collections from Hanif Abdurraqib, Chelsea Hodson, Scaachi Koul, and others reflect an exciting boom in the genre in the last few years alone. The essay has made a comeback, but it was always powerful. Again, Woolf said it best. “You can say in this shape what you cannot with equal fitness say in any other,” she wrote in “The Decay of Essay-Writing” in 1905: “its proper use is to express one’s personal peculiarities.”

There’s definitely something about essays, in their long-held comic tradition — “the joke” of literature, as G. K. Chesterton framed them — that resonates strongly today. After all, they are easily digestible, and in turn digest ideas. They are often simply “brain soufflés,” as David Lazar puts it in After Montaigne: a “walk-in closet of self or selves” ever more popular in our era of selfies and accumulations of followers on social media. Indeed, contemporary essays are often thoughts that gestate online, developed from blogs or one-off pieces: the sort of text with “14-minute read” under a byline for the crushing commute to work. They can also be surprisingly long and detailed, putting pay to the redundant idea that millennials cannot focus on anything beyond a shakshuka brunch, or — as the Daily Mail might interminably trot out — avocado toast. Caity Weaver’s epic quest to eat limitless mozzarella sticks as part of a TGI Friday’s promotion requires a good chunk of your time. John Saward’s classic reflections on Mike Tyson are as astute and amusing as Hazlitt. But with Golby we’re treated to two things at once: the pleasure of his wit and style as he ranges his themes, and a sustained, near-Swiftian satire on the very real and material challenges driven by the United Kingdom’s housing crisis. It’s not as simple as just laughing at £1,894 for a fold-out bed in Marylebone, or hedonism gone wrong; in Brilliant, we find a writer gunning for a fight.

In “PCM” (“Per Calendar Month”), Golby lays out the vagaries of dealing with the feudal overlords that might kick you out or take your deposit at the drop of a hat:

The landlords were very keen to stress when I was viewing the house that they were Reasonable People, which I have learned to now take from landlords as an immediate red flag that actually means “I am insanely deranged,” but I didn’t know this then; I was but a young bear cub, tiny and clear-eyed and full of trust, and plus desperate.

Golby intersperses his stories of the worst offenders with brutal, bloody fantasies of decimating each and every one: “The sound a landlord makes when you nail their toes down into the wood floor beneath them is, ‘This isn’t the definition of normal wear and tear.’” This is followed by an adroit move to his notion of “capsule coziness”: the kind of Scandinavian homely warmth called hygge that people were raving about a few years ago that in actuality equates to a herbal tea, a candle, and a “heather-colored blanket” you have to pack and move with every time the tenancy is up. Yet for all his inherently socialist leanings — this piece includes a well-researched outline of the real estate sector going back to 1986 — Golby is the first to admit that he is a slave to late capitalism’s charms. “Monopoly is the best game because the Actual Devil lives inside it,” he writes in another piece, before confessing to his rapacious greed and inhuman dealings on the board. “When I play Monopoly,” he writes,

I am David Cameron rimming Maggie off, I am Edwina Currie fucking John Major harder than he can fuck her back, I am a roaring-drunk Boris Johnson, I am Tory to the core-y, I am shaking hands with property developers in shady backroom multimillion-pound deals, I am blocking social housing to build luxury apartments in an effort to squeeze an extra £200K into my own private account, I am wearing a panama hat in the Cayman Islands and laughingly lighting a cigar with a £50 note.

In the United Kingdom there is a generational moniker: “Thatcher’s children.” If you were born in the ’80s, so the tag implies, you’ve been raised on rampant conservatism — the assumedly money-grabbing offspring spawned by her regime. But in truth we’re more conflicted. Society has raised us to believe getting on the property ladder is of paramount importance, but the reality of life-long renting and being pushed out of the city draws a big line between those who gained and those who lost under and after Thatcher. That Golby spins comedy gold from such a sorry state of affairs is testimony to how much we need a voice like his. Given his toothsome fight against oppressive property-owning profiteers, it is tempting to ascribe a cohesive political drive to Brilliant’s author. I asked him over email if he was interested in the horrors of capitalism, given how much of a theme it is in his work. “Mm, yes and no,” he responds. “My politics are, like baby-level deep. I was on a podcast the other week and everyone kept saying ‘neoliberal’ in a natural, casual air that made me sweat. I know the right and the left and vaguely where I fall on that spectrum … but beyond that I don’t feel qualified to talk. I don’t have the vocabulary.”

A similar modesty emerges with the very title of the book, even in its absurd egotism. “The title was initially there to make me laugh,” Golby explains, “then over time it became supremely annoying. It’s hard to pronounce without counting the Brilliants on your fingers: naming the book in this way has become the ultimate self-own.” One also finds this “ultimate self-own” in Golby’s approach to the book’s other major theme: masculinity. He riffs on the ineffable quality of “Machismo” (Golby’s brand is “soft knits and high necks” and a complex skin-care regime that includes the joys of an eye mask), offers an exhaustive, obsessive overview of all the Rocky films ranked in order of greatness, and marvels at Lenny Kravitz’s ability to pull off a leather jacket. (Golby decidedly cannot.) This deconstruction of masculinity accounts for some of the book’s funniest moments:

I realized a way of upgrading myself from a 5-out-of-10 to a solid 6 is to get a special trimmer to do the edging on my beard. And suddenly I went from a bar-of-soap-in-the-shower man to a guy with flannels, with precise and expensive tweezers. A guy who says this: “£55 for a moisturizer? Hell fucking yes!”

I asked Golby why masculinity can be so funny. “Well, because it’s absurd,” he replies, “but also it’s been one of the overriding influences on culture for the past million years, and we’re only just — just! — cracking out from that shadow … A lot of the things every man who has ever lived or ever died, a lot of what he has ever done, has been due to some deep roiling well of masculinity.”

I wonder if Golby is quite apart from the hegemonic masculinities (as initially theorized by R. W. Connell) that he decries. Brilliant arrives on the shoulders of gender theory: generations of feminist work with which emergent men’s studies became conversant in the 1980s, in works by Peter Schwenger, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Lynne Segal, and many others. A major subject of such studies was the “New Man” figure that appeared in popular culture in that decade — an emotionally more intelligent, respectful of women, post-yuppie incarnation — which in turn led to the “New Lad” of the 1990s. Integral to the British “lad culture” associated with the Britpop musical genre, the “New Lad” has been characterized by Rosalind Gill as an ironic, “beer and shagging,” Nuts- or Loaded-reading, cheeky manchild. We found him in David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s comedy and the “Three Lions” football anthem, for instance, in the TV series Men Behaving Badly and in the fiction of Nick Hornby and Martin Amis. “Ladlit,” as Elaine Showalter named it, is a direct forerunner of Brilliant, which — over 20 years after the classic “lad” film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and in the light shined on shameful male behavior by the #MeToo movement — inherits and plays with its own genre heritage.

On the one hand, Golby retrenches old notions of manhood. “The Full Spectrum of Masculinity as Represented by Rocky in the Rocky Movies” tangent is a somewhat limited list that veers between brute force and fragility, relying on tired myths as the joke. There’s a familiarity in this move, a well-worn trope. After all, as Steve Connor wrote in 2001 (in “The Shame of Being a Man”), talk about being a man usually has “tucked into it a snicker at its bumptious presumption”: “[W]e find it hard to take masculinity as seriously as we suppose.” That Golby turns his comedy on this theme so frequently suggests a reiteration not wholly free of its antecedents. On the other hand, however, he’s doing something utterly new with the late 2010s permutation of “lads.”

Golby’s Instagram is often one long stream of captioned images sending up exhausted “haway the lads” lager-swilling clichés with a belligerent repetition of “love and appreciation to the lads” — men and women — until it goes from funny to irritating to funny again. He’s also aware of the ways in which, as Connor puts it, “to write is to be unmanned, meritoriously to unman oneself.” Golby embraces such “unmanning.” He explores his own sensitivity and offers a catalog of “All the Fights I’ve Lost.” He’s part of a new generation that knows (yet still laughs) at how, as Connor again writes, “[m]en are spent up: masculinity is a category of ruin, a crashed category. It’s a bust.” Golby is also aware of its persistent homosocial nature: the values and relations exchanged between men, as Sedgwick’s ground-breaking work revealed. “I have to have a very small-voice conversation with myself every time I put a selfie on Instagram,” he tells me. “‘Is this … lame? Will the other boys … mock me?’ It’s an insane and stupid thing to be under a thrall to.”

The homosocial dimension of Golby’s thoughts on masculinity might explain the book’s main oddity. Brilliant has no women in Golby’s love life to speak of. No formative crushes, sex, dating stories — nothing except an encounter with a man in Barcelona selling state-of-the-art sex dolls. The cringeworthy, non-erotic nature of these scenes made me wince with the uncanny feeling Ernst Jentsch and later Freud associated with E. T. A. Hoffmann’s automaton doll Olympia in The Sandman. They are, as Golby puts it, “eerie”: “balloon-like breasts w/ bullet nipples, sagging unlocked jaw w/ a raw pink tongue, splayed neat rubberized vagina, a one-size-fits-all butthole put out with a drill.” Again, we’re less in the realm of sexuality and more in gendered constructs. Golby offers a feminist take on AI and consent, yet feels disquietingly shorn of “the pulsing core of straight masculinity” when surrounded by these uncanny valley robots. He has it both ways: exceeding the “busted” category of manhood, yet circling back to it for a laugh. Is this a new new laddism? The book provokes such a question.

There’s an adolescent immaturity to Golby’s writing, to be sure, but a joyful one, with a comedic suaveness that demands attention. He consistently delivers the jokes through distinctive stylistic moves. Words and phrases pile up in heaps until bam! — the thing tips over and you’re laughing, rereading. He even manages to pull off some comedy in the opening essay, the moving yet funny “Things You Only Know If Both Your Parents Are Dead” that appeared in an earlier form on Vice and more recently the Guardian, about being orphaned at 25. He repeats “My parents are dead” no fewer than 22 times, yet still finds humor in grief, in um-ming and ahh-ing over which kind of beer basket to plump for for a neighbor, or buying vol-au-vents at Tesco. (There was more about the ubiquitous supermarket Tesco, but it was subbed by the US editor for being a bit too British. Other Britishisms include: the cheap pub chain Wetherspoons; the cigarette papers Rizla; tights.) This is perhaps one of the most powerful things about the book: people have reached out to Golby after that essay’s first publication, “as if I am some sort of griefsaver,” but, as he says to friends, “no two griefs are the same. They are always different spikey, awkward shapes. There’s no clean, easy way to vomit grief up out of your system. It just works its way through you in whatever way it chooses to.”

In some ways, as with his romantic life, Golby keeps a lot back, but aspects of Brilliant, like his loss, are totally up front — a juxtaposition that gets us back to the question of ego. I wonder if he considers himself private. “I don’t know if I’m wildly private,” he tells me. “I tend to tweet every thought I have, Instagram my dinner with a forced hashtag and wrote an essay [“Ribs”] about attempting auto fellatio — so let’s not worry too much about that.” Golby still harbors a strong, endearing desire to go to America and “hole up in a motel room with every snack I’ve ever seen on TV and watch 24-hour news.” (He’s wanted to do this since he was about eight.) He admits that his book is all about him, as he has had to convey what it’s about to many an editor’s bemusement with “a blank stare and say something along the lines of: ‘things that I like. I am the theme.’” Ultimately, he confesses, “more than anything else it is, still, fundamentally, just an ego trip thing. I have an enormous ego. An insufferable one.”

In the end, it is Golby’s satire that carries most weight. I ask him one final question, which was always on my lips as I read his columns and choice bits of the book. Is it possible for a human being to become a landlord without turning into a monster? “No,” he replies, firmly. “It’s not possible to become a landlord without turning into a monster. It’s not even possible to conceive of the idea of becoming a landlord without some hollow part of you already being monstrous. No landlord can escape the curse of their own landlordism. Their soul is condemned before they even pull up outside the auction house.”

¤

Cathryn Setz is an Associate Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Primordial Modernism: Animals, Ideas, transition (1927–1938) (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

The post The Ultimate Self-Own: On Joel Golby’s “Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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