Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates (review)
[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hristopher J. Yates’ début novel Black Chalk follows six students as they begin their first year at Oxford University. Ambitious, calculating and competitive, they are not content with attending one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Instead, they create a game, designed to test and humiliate each other, with rounds of dares with increasingly sinister consequences. An alumnus of Oxford University himself, Yates creates a rapid plot which is entertaining and engaging, for the most part.
However, this fast-paced style at times makes the characters feel flat, which makes promising plot twists loose emotional momentum
The novel opens with the narrative of a man living as a hermit in his apartment in present-day New York. After a phone call from an old acquaintance, the hermit awakens from his dormancy and begins to prepare for the last round of a mysterious game. In the other narrative, emerging a few pages in, Yates describes the meeting of the six founders of the game fourteen years previously and, in a supposedly omniscient voice, explains how the game was created. It’s an intriguing technique, moving from past to present, from cause to effect.
At times, the novel itself appears to be a puzzle, daring the reader to try to piece together the connection between the two narrative voices from the few ragged clues left in Yates’ prose. However, like his student protagonists, at times Yates is a little too ambitious and over-complicates his narration with so many twists and turns that it is easy for the reader to lose track. The sub-plots, counter plots and plot twists all tangle themselves up instead of intertwining effortlessly and, rather than complementing the main storyline as they are designed to do, end up distracting the reader. Nonetheless, though the plot is sometimes confusing, it is never boring. The narrative moves so quickly that the reader doesn’t need to understand every aspect of the plot completely in order to enjoy the book.
This said, although the plot moves quickly, its rapid speed means that moments of characterisation and emotion are fleeting – a hurried stop on the way to a final destination. It is hard to feel sorry for characters that, despite being clever enough to attend Oxford, seem completely oblivious to the inevitability of their own doom. They scheme and plot against each other mercilessly, making it difficult to feel any sympathy when their plans backfire. Of course, the scheming is entertaining from a distance, full of resourceful, fiercely cruel ideas, but the distance prevents the ending having much emotional impact. As a result, the tension deflates as the novel builds towards its dénouement.
Without sympathy for the characters, the reader observes the consequences of the dares coolly and casually.
It could be argued that Yates is restricted by the genre conventions of a thriller. In order to satiate the hunger of thriller readers, plots have to be fast-paced, body counts need to be high; no time can be wasted. It is here that comparisons to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History – although inevitable as both books are débuts featuring an elite group of students at two of the world’s finest universities – seem irrelevant and inaccurate. Black Chalk is a thriller that relies on its twists and turns in the plot to keep a reader entertained.
The Secret History is another kind of novel entirely, revealing the identity of the murderer, the victim and the circumstances of the crime in the very first chapter, setting the tension on a gentle simmer for the next six hundred and fifty pages. Black Chalk is like a wok or frying-pan; ideas, plots and characters spit and hiss as they sizzle together – The Secret History is a slow-cooker. You’re guaranteed a good meal with both – it just depends what you’re hungry for.
Black Chalk bursts with potential, but opportunities are often wasted
The mysterious Game Society, policing the practise of the game, is an intriguing creation that Yates never explores or explains fully. The final round of the game seems a little anticlimactic and is concluded very quickly. Female characters become relevant only through their relationships with male characters and, when no longer needed, fade quickly into the background. A description of a woman being ‘looked after for years’ by her male partner will not sit well with feminist audiences. This was a particularly alienating aspect that will concern many female readers – the novel has a decidedly masculine tone, preoccupied with daring young men desperate to prove themselves to each other, to women and, ultimately, themselves. Egos are inflated and burst, testosterone pumping through the pages. For young, male readers this could be compelling: for others, possibly not.
In spite of all this, Black Chalk remains a solid début novel
Although confusing and disjointed at times, it is never dull. Having studied Law at Oxford University and having worked as a puzzle editor in London before moving to New York, it is obvious that Yates knows exactly what he’s talking about. He’s visited, sometimes even lived in, the settings he describes. By the sounds of the acknowledgements in the very back of the book when he thanks a chap named Chris ‘…for his help, twenty-three years ago, with the conception of the Game (which thankfully we never played),’ he created a game like his characters do. Unlike them, he was clever enough not to play. In his début, Yates shows us he can plot a very readable a thriller. He’s put his cards on the table. Now we just have to wait for his next move.
Black Chalk was longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger award).
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