Barney Norris’s third novel opens with a wedding in April. The couple tying the knot don’t matter; it’s the occasion that does, paving the way for a story about love, family and stories themselves, which is apt from a writer who is known for his dramas on the stage as much as on the page.
Ed, who narrates half the novel, is there with his girlfriend Juliet, wondering why they’re yet to get married. It’s the expense, he supposes, and the not knowing what sort of ring to buy. And so he allows time to drift by, ‘just letting it happen to me, rather than me doing very much with it’. But then the wedding photographer, Amy, recognises Ed from a chance encounter as children and his story starts to change.
Norris, who teaches creative writing at the University of Oxford, does a great deal with time in Undercurrent, both structurally and mechanically.
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