{"id":13207,"date":"2026-05-14T09:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13207"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:42:28","slug":"shaun-wilson-malcs-boy-reviewed-by-joseph-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13207","title":{"rendered":"Shaun Wilson, Malc’s Boy, reviewed by Joseph Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wilson’s masculine autofiction wrestles with inherited violence and literary form in equal measure.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shaun Wilson | Malc\u2019s Boy <\/em>| Conduit Books: \u00a312.99
<\/strong>Reviewed by Joseph Hunter<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been much of a one for fighting. Most of the men I know are the same. I\u2019ve had fights, but mostly when I was very young, and none of them were serious. Violence isn\u2019t really a part of my life in any active way. And yet, like all men, I can\u2019t escape it. The possibility of it lingers. As Shaun, auto-fictional protagonist and narrator of Malc\u2019s Boy<\/em>, observes: \u2018There\u2019s a constant threat uh violence in every interaction between men, it\u2019s underlying all male culture\u2019. The important point to note is that\u2019s whether you like it or not<\/em> \u2013\u00a0and most of us don\u2019t. Malc\u2019s Boy <\/em>is in part the story of how one young man is socialised into violence, through his relationship with his dad, Malc, pub brawler and local hard man. Being the son of such a man, we come to learn, is a heavy burden, and one that sits uneasily on Shaun\u2019s shoulders. This autofiction represents his attempt to understand the nature of his inheritance, one that is arguably shared in some form by all of those raised as men.<\/p>\n

Let me step back for a moment and give some context. Malc\u2019s Boy <\/em>is Shaun Wilson\u2019s first book, and it\u2019s being published by Conduit Books, a new independent press that gained a small amount of notoriety in the literary publishing world when its founder, novelist Jude Cook, announced<\/a> that the press would have an initial specific focus on publishing male writers, through a desire to combat a perceived contemporary aversion (by agents and editors, the decision-makers in publishing) to the male voice in literary fiction \u2013 such voices are often seen as inherently problematic. I should, at this point, confess a personal connection: I submitted my own novel manuscript for consideration by Conduit. I was not successful \u2013 in fact, I never even got a reply, understandable when I later learned just how many submissions Cook received from male writers keen to have their voices heard: close to 2,000, in fact.\u00a0 As such I was keen to discover what kind of male voices Conduit would choose to champion.<\/p>\n

At first glance it\u2019s perhaps a little surprising that the press has chosen to publish first a book that puts pretty old-fashioned versions of masculinity at the forefront: fighting, shagging, drinking, etc. It does so with gusto. Violence, in particular, is laced throughout the narrative. Shaun\u2019s narration shows how deep this tendency runs in his psyche, with chapter 12 beginning: \u2018Stu is my best friend because he\u2019s the second hardest and then Keith he\u2019s the third\u2019 \u2013 even the friendships between young boys are stratified by the capacity of each of them for violence. Fighting is often the punctuation in this novel, and it\u2019s a violent episode that forms one of the climaxes of the narrative arc, the now-30-year-old Shaun avenging his ageing father with an act of violence against the man who attacked Malc. This tendency isn\u2019t innate, but either learned (in Shaun\u2019s case), or something that is likened to a demonic possession, coming into Malc from the outside and taking him over:<\/p>\n

Malc\u2019s eyes became distant and his face grew pale and dispassionate. It was the vacant, almost sleepy state the boy knew to be a precursor to a certain transformation, as though some aspect of his father\u2019s consciousness was becoming void, readying itself to receive some wandering and malevolent spirit. (p.62)<\/p>\n

The above passage is an example of one of several \u2018modes\u2019 in which the novel is written. That\u2019s narrator-Shaun (higher level, book narrator) in his literary mode. There are also lengthy passages in free indirect discourse, following the thoughts inside one of the protagonist Shauns (sometimes referred to in third person as \u2018the boy\u2019 in chapters that feature a juvenile version of the protagonist), and large sections in Cumbrian and\/or Northeastern (mainly Geordie) English dialect. The latter dialects are written phonetically, which takes a little getting used to at first but is pretty intuitive to read. Structurally, the book is divided into 100 short chapters, with dialogue scenes (formatted like a screenplay) between Shaun and Malc interspersing chapters that trace Shaun\u2019s dissolute life, addictions, and sexual encounters \u2013 not to mention, of course, the many assaults and fights that punctuate the text.<\/p>\n

Adding to this layered picture are the text\u2019s many reflexive, postmodern aspects. This is, after all, a narrative about narrative-making, a text about becoming that we witness in the process of becoming. The dialogue scenes between Shaun and Malc, for example, are explicitly about what kind of narrative Shaun is writing about Malc, thus forming a sort of meta-commentary about truth and authenticity. This device occasionally threatens to get a little too clever for its own good, acquiring what the late David Foster Wallace sometimes referred to as a \u2018look mum no hands\u2019 quality:<\/p>\n

All we have are the memories an secondhand accounts. Like us now \u2013 this is real, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s happenen now, an it\u2019s bein recorded on there. [Points to the camera, waves.] See \u2013 that\u2019s capturen this reality. But then, between now, when it\u2019s happenen, an the time in the future when a\u2019m actually writen it up, transcriben it, there\u2019s a degree uh interpretation there, fer example, this. [Sticks two fingers up at the camera.] A might write that a was sayen fuck off, or a could just say a was hodden two fingers up. Or a could just cut it completely. (95)<\/p>\n

For me, such moments stay on the right side of the clever\/too clever divide. The text earns the right to be complex and self-referential because the impression we get of Shaun and Malc is that, as complex individuals grappling with ideas of masculinity, they are themselves layered, and often self-referential. The form fits the subject matter.<\/p>\n

What it amounts to is that Wilson earns the right to have his novel say things about the male voice that I have rarely seen in contemporary literature. Many of the most direct examples of this appear in the final dialogue scene of the novel, in which Shaun\u2019s interviewee is not Malc but Martine, Shaun\u2019s articulate and feminist partner. Martine takes Shaun to task for his writing not being feminist in several respects, to which Shaun replies:<\/p>\n

A\u2019ll admit that me books haven\u2019t got many women in them [\u2026] the books a\u2019ve written so far are based on me life, inspired by me struggles wid inherited masculinity, toxic masculinity, whatever ye wanna call it. A\u2019ve tried to keep them lean an just leave the stuff in that\u2019s relevant te the shape uh the book, the plot, even though ye couldn\u2019t call them plots, but shaped around themes uh violence, power, subversion an all that. An women didn\u2019t have a strong role te play in my particular struggle wid inherited violence. (307)<\/p>\n

The fact that this has to be stated at all is revealing. A male writer writing about masculinity justifying why his narrative voice and focus is, well, male<\/em>. A female literary writer would never be criticised for centring female identity, and Wilson seems to be anticipating to the inverse criticism of his own text. For my own part, the maleness of this narrative was refreshing and something I connected with, as a man. It doesn\u2019t let men off the hook or excuse the violence they do \u2013\u00a0if anything, it shows it in its absorbing ugliness. My own \u2013\u00a0minor \u2013\u00a0concerns are slightly more subtle. Another aspect of Conduit\u2019s desire to centre male voices is a focus on working-class narratives, of which Wilson\u2019s is one. That\u2019s an admirable aim, but here the working-class story being told \u2013\u00a0pubs, violence, booze\u00a0\u2013 is only one, somewhat self-destructive and limiting, kind of working-class story. I think of the working-class man I know best, my own dad, who spent his childhood reading and playing football and his adulthood being engaged in leftwing politics, trying to change the world for the better. There are many working-class male voices out there and many models of masculinity to choose from. Shaun Wilson offers authenticity of a certain, compelling, sort, but I hope the violent and rather extreme nature of such authenticity doesn\u2019t become a kind of litmus test for what kind of male story is worth telling.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Joseph Hunter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilson’s masculine autofiction wrestles with inherited violence and literary form in equal measure. Shaun Wilson | Malc\u2019s Boy | Conduit Books: \u00a312.99Reviewed by Joseph Hunter I\u2019ve never been much of a one for fighting. Most of the men I know are the same. I\u2019ve had fights, but mostly when I was very young, and none […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nShaun Wilson, Malc's Boy, reviewed by Joseph Hunter - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13207\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shaun Wilson, Malc's Boy, reviewed by Joseph Hunter - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wilson’s masculine autofiction wrestles with inherited violence and literary form in equal measure. 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