A historian’s quest for Richard the Lionheart

WRITING makes Justin Cartwright happy. That and tennis keep the 68-year-old calm. But he hates the two weeks prior to publication, before the reviews. Winner of numerous prizes for his novels, he shouldn’t worry; but the odd critic has been vindictive.

I’m a huge admirer of Cartwright’s writing.

His novels illuminate life’s preoccupations, through characters rooted in human frailty.

The South African, now settled in London, consistently pushes the boundaries, and Lion Heart is his most ambitious novel yet.

It started as a rummage through history; exploring the truths and myths that surround Richard the Lionheart, but the parallel story of Richie, the writer researching Richard, who falls in love in Jerusalem, spirals the novel into a myriad of themes, and Cartwright wasn’t confident that he’d made it work.

“This novel felt quite difficult, at times,” Cartwright says. “I went at it freestyle. I knew what I was going to do, but I hadn’t plotted it too carefully. The component parts weren’t strictly-speaking related and could be seen as separate stories. So I was conscious I was taking a risk.

“I normally write 600 words a day in the British library, but I wanted to get this book finished faster. I spent two months in South Africa, writing day and night.

“That worked well, but I still worried. The whole thing was like a soufflé. I thought it could collapse.”

To date, the reviews have been mixed, but mostly good, with some critics saying it’s his best. Set in London, Oxford and a seductive, lusciously described Jerusalem, the plot involves spooks, kidnappers and priceless relics.

But it’s the human love story, between Richie and the journalist, Noor, that makes this novel particularly beguiling.

When the novel opens, Richie has lost his way in life. An Oxford scholar, whose feckless father had been too fond of drugs, his relationship with the mousy Emily isn’t going anywhere. “At the beginning, Richie is a bit of a loser,” says Cartwright. “He’s clearly a bit loosely moored to reality. But he’s also clever, and there’s dissonance between his brains and his understanding of the world.”

Richie gradually gets to grips with things, but not before a psychotic episode and two nights in a psychiatric hospital.

I loved the way that experience was treated; not as a shameful tragedy, but as a consequence of the stress of Noor being kidnapped during the Arab Spring.

“I know quite a lot of people who have had psychotic breaks and have found life difficult for a short time, and most of them seem to have got over it,” Cartwright says.

There are many times, reading Cartwright, that the reader laughs in recognition at an observation; at something they have intuited, but never heard expressed. And that, Cartwright says, is the difference between a genre novel and literary fiction.

Cartwright fleshes out all the subsidiary characters. This is particularly true of Ed, Richie’s friend from university, who, introduced as a kindly, considerate support, is shown to have troubles of his own.

A failed banker with a broken marriage, he hates the PhD for which he is studying, but is desperate to regain self-esteem.

“I’m aiming to have characters who are distinctive,” says Cartwright. “They should never be there just to fill a plot problem; they should always have a consistent, believable life, but that is the most difficult thing to do.” Then, cheering up, he says, “But the nice thing is, after about 20,000 words, you begin to know the way they speak and the way they regard things. It becomes a real pleasure.

“Characters often grow from my experience,” Cartwright says. “Richie’s childhood was based on my mother’s experience. Her mother died when she was eight, and she was left with a father who wasn’t terrible, but was certainly feckless. The older I get, the more I realise children love consistency.”

This leads to a discussion about Cartwright’s three young grandchildren, whom he sees often, and adores. Aged from three down to one, they attended his recent launch.

“It was utter chaos,” says Cartwright. “They were running around wildly, and all the PR girls were cooing over them. My editor decided not to make a speech. Instead, he picked up little Isaac, and ran off with him, saying, ‘I am broody’.”

Cartwright’s childhood, in Johannesburg, was marred by boarding school. “I was sent away, aged seven, to Cape Town, a thousand miles from home. The train journey took 36 hours. It was fairly tough.”

So was Richie’s experience of having his head flushed down the loo based on his creator’s story? “I talked myself out of trouble. But when I saw the movie, If, I thought, ‘this is not a parody. This is how it was’.”

With interweaving themes of unconscious knowledge, and the uncertainty of belief, Lion Heart is, above all, about writing. Cartwright feels, passionately, that readers can glean more of life’s truth from novels than from history or non-fiction.

“If I want to know what is going on in South Africa, I read Nadine Gordimer. There’s nothing you can trust in the newspapers. I say that even though my father was a journalist. What the government said was always complete and utter nonsense.

“I remember when black consciousness came to the fore in South Africa, there was a day when the government reported complete quiet. But a friend, who was a heart surgeon in our biggest hospital, told me that his ward sister had been shot by an off-duty policeman, whilst seven people on trolleys were bleeding on top of each other, whilst they waited for treatment.”

Cartwright spent six weeks in Jerusalem. He made a documentary there about the ancient scrolls. His descriptions are of a seductive but uneasy place.

“Jerusalem is astonishing. It will never leave you. You walk up a side street and find an Armenian church with a couple of monks coming out. You hear bells ringing at all times, and the call to prayer. But you do sense the spiritual turmoil.”

Describing Lion Heart as a state-of-the-world novel, Cartwright muses that literature enriches our sense of identity.

“Novels do slowly, by increments, change our view of ourselves, our country, and our relationships,” he says. “One can hardly imagine the Irish without thinking about Irish writers. And the same is true in England, though the Victorian period was the high. Everyone knows what Dickensian means.

“When Beckett was asked what his book was about he said, ‘the book is about the writing,’ and that is a credo. I try not to let a sentence through that I don’t want to read again. It’s a real privilege being a writer,” he says. “Provided, of course, that you can make a living.”

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