LEADING THE CHEERS (Justin Cartwright)

Why should people not judge books by their covers? Covers do actually tell you a lot about what lies within a lot of the time. Sure, the quality is something that is difficult to convey through what appears on that very front surface, but everything else seems like it could very well be explained through a carefully chosen image or appropriately selected colours or an intriguing use of font. For example, a bright, cheerful, beautiful, blonde cheer leader sporting a tight blue sweater with a huge gold H on it whilst jumping star-like into the air, pom-poms aloft should surely mean that what lies within is a light piece of airplane misadventure through the comedic realms of high schools? Surely? Well, in the case of Justin Cartwright's Leading The Cheers, how wrong one would be.

For while Cartwright's study of mid-life and middle America is cynically funny and unquestionably forthright with some of its judgments, what lies at the centre of this small tale of reflection is a powerful sense of just that, reflection, and an at times pungent sense of pathos. For the pain that most leave behind once exited the high school doors envelops Dan Silas as he returns from England to the Michigan in which he grew up to give his high-school reunion address. Whilst Silas has seemingly made much of his time away from the United States his return brings forth pains he had repressed, pains he had never known and pains he will ultimately be asked to bear in turn for others.

This is a messy little book that mixes plenty of things successfully but which at times gets lost in its own cleverness and astute observations. Cartwright skirts dangerously close to being judgmental of his characters but then somehow manages to pull back just in time with the beauty of passages such as this:

The thought cheers me and I compose myself for sleep. It's a state, sometimes lasting only a few seconds, when the day's events and thoughts throw in the towel.

It's strangely welcome as though sleep is not so much to rest the body as to provide a respite from being human.

And in true form he reiterates this very fact through a broad slap to the face as Dan is woken with the sheer brutatlity of a single word from his daughter's killer that is so shocking it resonates with him and the reader long after the time spent together has ended.

In the end if Leading The Cheers does nothing more than provoke one to simply turn pages it does help suggest one should not be urged to simply employ that time-old advice to not judge a book by its cover. Perhaps, more sagely, another well-worn cliche would suffice. 'Be prepared' or 'expect the unexpected' would surely be an appropriate addition to the misleading joy etched so clearly on that cheerleader's face.