On… Malc’s Boy

A ‘real man’ on a page?

“Geezers need excitement.”
The Streets.

Do you believe books should be for and about everyone?

I started writing my first novel Delivery because I was sick that every leading man I read seemed to be a slightly different version of the same trope; ‘nice’ middle-class boys who get dumped and ring their mum or their female best friend for a good cry; sanitised, sympathetic gents who always, always want to be a stand-up comedian, a writer, or, at a push, an English teacher. These men could never, ever, have any real flaws, and exactly a third of the way in you’d get a line about ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ to show they were ‘on our side’. You know the type… ‘unproblematic’ floppy-haired lovable imbeciles who mope a bit but are jolly good chaps, really… wimps who bear little resemblance to the average man in the street.

So I set out to write something more representative of the majority… a modern ‘Angry Young Men’ tale about the Sun-reading male underclass… the kind of men most of publishing seems to think can pick up a knife or a spanner, but cannot, for the life of them, pick up a fiction paperback.

And the feedback is always the same. Industry people – writers, authors, agents, theatre readers, editors – love my pitch, like the white van man hook, tell me the writing is good enough, the pace is there, it’s got energy, and that this is a voice that deserves to be heard… before they pause… and look at me benevolently… almost as if I’m a child who just doesn’t understand yet… and tell me it’s got no chance, unless I change it all, swap the main character’s sex, tell it from his girlfriend’s perspective instead, make it less angry, make my character more vulnerable, and more sympathetic, and above all, ‘land it more with female readers’ – because (bigoted statement alert) – ‘men don’t / won’t read’ – and there is little effort and desire to get more men to read fiction, by, for example, reflecting their lives on the page.

And so you’re left with a dilemma. Play the game and get published. Or stick to your guns, and stay out here, in literary oblivion.

But then a ray of hope appears. And the tide begins to turn.

Because somehow we have some trailblazers… books about actual working-class boys and men. The current Booker Prize winner Flesh is about ‘masculinity’. Hermit and England is Mine have dug into the very uncomfortable realities of the modern young male experience. Keshed, although I’ve not read it yet, is out now, and we’ve just had some poetry about working in a plastics factory.

Jack Aldane has launched a new podcast, encouraging more men to read fiction.

Even some of the newspapers have started talking about it.

And now we have the hero of the hour, Jude Cook, a man who has done the unthinkable… launching the new publishing house Conduit, specifically to share and prioritise male, working-class voices… an act akin to starting on a Russian circus bear in its bravery in the acronym-obsessed, patriarchy-aware, privately-educated microcosm of society that makes up the publishing community. Jude has dared to show leadership by demonstrating that a normal functioning business in any industry will try (and maybe fail) to enter and grow in new markets, rather than making 20+ derivatives of whatever caught fire on TikTok last summer. He’s also shown that being ‘inclusive’ means promoting different perspectives and different voices, rather than just publishing endless iterations of the same very, very narrow world-view — that of the ‘cultural elite’.

To many young women in publishing, Jude’s actions are heresy, and to writers like me, they are heroic… so much so, Jude may even, in time, be forgiven for overlooking the world’s greatest novel about Millwall-based masculinity.

And now he’s gone one-step further, by publishing Malc’s Boy by Shaun Wilson, an unapologetic hand grenade of a novel, which doesn’t so much emphasise the male experience as swing for anyone who thought they were getting another carbon copy ‘hockey boy romance’ or ‘awakening’ as soon as they heard ‘male’.

Malc’s Boy’s protagonist Shaun is a (somewhat auto-biographical) boozehound musician turned writer, constantly trying to live up to the reputation of his hellraising father, Malc, a man who sticks the nut on anyone who disagrees with him, steals his money, insults his friends, spills his pint, or does anything else to mildly rile him.

Shaun is no shrinking violet himself, having got into a fair few scrapes and been with a fair few women by the midpoint of the novel, but still feels inadequate in the eyes of his father… the only cure being a violent retribution to avenge his pa, who, now a pensioner and too old to fight back, was floored after a cowardly right hook from behind.

So we follow Shaun as he navigates a world of class As, bongo mags, inherited toxic masculinity, the low-income lifestyle, closing time and two-minute rounds with a pair of 12oz boxing gloves and a physically superior opponent. And as Shaun prepares for revenge, he tries to learn what makes his father tick, and thereby, unlock the code to what it means to be a man.

An example post-headbutt scene…

Shaun: Is laddo awright?

Malc: Aye, he’ll be awreet. He just lost a few teeth.

Shaun: A didn’t think he had any teeth.

Malc: Well, he’ll have a few less noo.

As Withnail’s Marwood might have said, get any more masculine than this and you’d have to throw the manuscript up into a tree. Malc’s Boy’s settings are bars, pubs, brothels, boxing gyms and alleyways that have seen more fights than Madison Square Garden. There’s coke, Thai hookers, spliffs, pints being poured, bother with the law, stag do violence, women being ‘bulled’, and even a shooter thrown into the mix. Imagine the kind of literary landscape Jean-Claude Van Damme might walk into before he started banging heads together…. and then sat down with a copy of The End of Eddy.

Because Malc’s Boy is done with skill, and refinement, and precision, and realism, and it’s literary.

It’s got verve. Author Shaun Wilson – who’s written about his own struggles with the difficulties of being a ‘male writer’ - marries a Lock Stock energy with moments of almost romantic confession between father and son, candlelit tête-à-têtes that are part heart-to-heart and part headbutt-to-headbutt… juxtaposed with scenes of street-fighting and brave, base, self-reflection on (the character) Shaun’s own desires, and internal musings on the very nature of manhood itself.

Malc’s Boy won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but it is intelligent, and experimental, and there is a hell of a lot to be said for that in such a risk-averse industry. Wilson beautifully uses and abuses auto-fiction conventions to turn the novel in on itself, a written manuscript that is part confession, part tool to incite some insights from the unsuspecting, monosyllabic Malc… who would never, under ordinary circumstances ‘open up’… a clever novel-within-a-novel that’s trying to do the equivalent of getting Biffa Bacon onto a therapist’s couch.

The violence, dialogue and attitudes of the main characters will be anathema to many female readers – but does that mean they should not be seen? Especially when at its heart, this novel is an exploration – and not a justification - as to why men act in these toxic ways in the first place.

Malc’s Boy is a cultured, stylistic effort that asks important questions. A highbrow novel by a straight, working-class man, about straight, working-class men, which will actually appeal to straight, working-class men… the kind of book that might lead us neanderthals to put down the rudimentary tools we’re just about capable of mastering, and discover the dazzling new world of literary fiction instead. Maybe a few more of us will try to stick some words on a page too.

Because with Malc’s Boy, the barriers have been stormed.

The floodgates have been opened.

And the boys are back in town.

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Talking of hardnut masculinity, any man wanting a good cry who can’t wait until Millwall’s agonising but inevitable play-off final defeat should pick up No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald. It’s set amongst three generations of women in Catford… and follows a single year on a South London estate… and mark my words, it will get you sobbing.

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I’d like your help…

This is my third post on Substack. I started writing here to make the argument that men who like beer, football and boxing can also like fiction too. Wish me luck.

If you like this blog or my extract, and would like more posts on new books, writing and the relative merits of 4-4-2 versus 4-5-1, please consider subscribing, restacking, liking, sharing, commenting, or sending me some feedback privately.

And if you hate my writing or disagree with me, send me a message too. I’d like to hear what you think.

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PS: Got a foot, in the door…