Another day, another ambitious first novel, desirably slipcased with a cover that earned curious glances from fellow commuters (remove the book from the slipcase to reveal an attractive patterned cover with the book title hidden in the pattern). Show Me The Sky is a book of many loosely connected parts, told in a number of different styles:

• Detective Inspector Jim Dent’s first person account of his investigation in to the disappearance of the rock star Billy K
• The journal of Nelson Babbage, the new name of a Fijian native educated in England and inculcated in to Christianity, now on his way back to bring the word of God to Fiji as part of a group of Victorian missionaries
• An account of Jimmy, a teenage runaway from a broken home
• The letters of Cal, stranded in the Australian Outback after a motorcycle accident, to his girlfriend Monique
• For good measure, we also have magazine articles, interviews, e-mails and recordings of dialogue

The central narrative arc is around DI Dent’s quest for Billy K, a world-famous rockstar (who defies plausibility by being as big as the Beatles and Elvis combined, though the method of his disappearance is more reminiscent of Richie from Manic Street Preachers). Having followed leads halfway around the world, Dent’s only remaining clue is the book Billy was reading when he vanished, being the journal of Nelson Babbage, entitled ‘Show Me The Sky’.

Babbage’s journal is very well written, and is the high point of the book. It focuses on his growing awareness of the hypocrisy, venality, racism and downright unpleasantness of his reverend companions on their journey from London to Fiji via Australia, and these sections reminded me of the wonderful English Passengers by Matthew Kneale. Once they arrive in Fiji, there are shades of Heart of Darkness as the mission leader abandons whatever Christian beliefs he ever had in the pursuit of power and corporeal gratification, ultimately more influenced by the cannibalistic natives than influencing them. I could have read an entire book of Babbage’s journal and enjoyed it immensely. It’s well researched and very well written.

Cal’s letters to his girlfriend as he realises his predicament are also well written, and his prose becomes increasingly melodramatic and surreal, a fitting representation of a man losing hope, deteriorating mentally and physically. Our central protagonist, DI Dent, is sympathetic and largely likeable: his self-destructive tendencies and go-it-alone approach seem intended to evoke Rebus and other dysfunctional coppers, but his willingness to believe in the reality of Cal’s tortured visions rather stretches credibility.

The points where the book falls down all centre around the object of Dent’s interest, the rock god Billy K. The passages describing his greatness, his genius, his popularity, his world-changing lyrics, are rather overblown and, I am sorry to say, reminded me more of Jilly Cooper than any other writer. The articles and interviews were not really believable – I wanted something that really felt like it came from the pages of Q or the NME – and the section of dialogue that is meant to give us an insight in to Billy’s tortured soul, captured in a recording studio tryst between Billy and his junkie muse before his disappearance, is not plausible, not in terms of subject matter but because people don’t talk like philosopher-poets when they’re having sex in a recording studio (well, I’m guessing they don’t).

Show Me The Sky is a book of many parts, and it’s fair to say that some parts are much better than others. Billy K rather lets the side down, but Hogg does compensate for these issues to some extent with some clever plotting and a satisfying ending. You are left with the sense that this book was perhaps slightly too ambitious for a first outing, but I think with a bit more attention to dialogue (and perhaps fewer musical messiahs), Mr Hogg will have much more to offer in the future.

Bookmark to