BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Bricks That Built the Houses’ by Kate Tempest

‘Let it be magic. These are not engines we’re making’ – Hold Your Own

In preparation for this review, I was scrolling through stuff online, looking for anything that had been written about this book. I ended up reading a condescending review, written by someone who – to their benefit – probably hasn’t admitted to something being wholly good since childhood; then BAM! A pop-up ad hit me like a wet slap. Covering the screen, a news story on the US presidential campaign; a reality check with a heavy bill. Donald-fucking-Trump is in with a shot at being forcibly taken seriously; the political equivalent of a funfair coming to life whilst you’re trapped inside the house of horrors. Imagine what that would smell like.

It was this jarring transition from poet to president that settled my opinion of this book: in the light of this world, it is a truly good thing.

Kate Tempest is literally my favourite artist, of any kind, so I went into this worried that the article would sound biased and unconsidered. I tried to dig out tiny, little things; anything that might balance the ‘pros and cons’ list. I then realised I was becoming a fiend, picking at sun kissed skin with dirty nails. I was actually trying – and trying hard – to criticise something for the sake of criticism! Was I prepared to elevate criticism to the ranks of that-so-good-it-should-be-done-for-its-own-sake? No, I wasn’t.

The Bricks That Built the Houses is the sort of novel that makes you wish you’d used your middle finger to quit your job, before you were fired. Tempest ties together London’s loose-ends and lovers with a story that grips your hand and pulls you through the generations of our capital city.

The novel focuses on four Londoners, each reaching the dregs of their 20s, each eager to shed their skin and begin the next chapter. Harry, Becky, Pete, and Leon are characters that appear to be discovered, as opposed to written. Tempest gifts them each with rich ancestral tapestries that could as easily be unfolded in the pub as they could through pages of Greek myth. However, the epic nature of her characters does not come from magnifying and exaggerating their personalities and the everyday (maybe with the exception of ‘David Fairview’ who works at ‘Bright Eyes’). Rather, it comes from dividing deeper, describing her characters with a fractal filter; examining every brick of a building and finding a book in their place. The mythical cadence will remind the reader of some of Tempest’s earlier work: the award winning epic poem Brand New Ancients, which took home the Ted Hughes Award for Poetry back in 2012.

The Bricks That Built the Houses was born from Kate Tempest’s Mercury Prize nominated debut album Everybody Down; a 12 track tale that starts with a little bump on the fingernail and ends in escape. It’s here we are first introduced to our main characters.

It would be easy to describe Tempest as a jack of all trades; poet, rapper, playwright, and now novelist, but this would be giving in to the categorisation she fights so hard to dismiss. I remember once hearing her say that artists are categorised as a way to turn what they create into a commodity. Where this is inescapable, Tempest turns it to her advantage: in presenting the same story in two different art forms (rap/prose), she hopes that either will become a gateway to the other. It is this idea that helps us overcome the first little bump in her novel.

Those familiar with Everybody Down will remember ‘the guy opposite, bright eyes, dark shirt’ as Harry, brother of Pete, well-meaning dealer, furiously saving up for the key to his dream bar: Harry’s Place; a space ‘with real music, played with heart by real bands. Not just posers looking like they’re giving blowjobs to mic stands’. A few pages into the novel, we first encounter Harry, in the back of a car ‘limbs splayed like the arms of a broken umbrella’. Well this time it’s Harriet (only called so by her shrunken-minded mother, Miriam), to us, she’s still Harry.

To change the sex of a main character seems like a pretty bold move, but it pushes the reader to understanding that sometimes sex is less important than gender. If anything, the change adds a new element for our characters to dance through, and dance they do. I’d love to know whether Tempest always knew Pete had a sister.

It is Kate Tempest’s refusal to be categorised that makes it so easy to accept this immediate change. Consistency is great, but as Jesus once said: the Sabbath was made for the man, not the man for the Sabbath – or something like that. The transformation of the character, from album to novel, gives us a glimpse of Tempest’s process and mindset, turning us to question our dependence on rules and structure. At the end of the day, if Harry Potter became Harriet Potter, as long as she still killed Hitler and fucked Ron’s sister, I’d like to think we’d be okay with it. Along with categories, Kate is not confined by shallow consistencies.

Whether you’re familiar with her work or not, her words are blinding:

“Harry feels the prickle of attention, looks over, sees a woman she doesn’t recognise watching her. Even just a glimpse is blinding. The woman shines so hard in Harry’s eyes that a sudden flash is all it takes. She explodes out of herself like a fireball, blinding. Brighter and brighter. Electric and surging, her outline ripping the party like lightning, forking and searing and flashing, shining like sunlight on water reflecting back on itself and becoming heat. A fierceness about her. Shining so golden and yellow-hot, black fire, burning blue in the middle. A new sun blistering bright. Harry blinks, gathers her body parts up from the corners of the room and pieces them back together again.”

Her style of description captures the essence of thought: collages, colours fastened to numbers, counting in all directions. She sees the way people, on daily basis, skip from world to world, blink into one person from another, and she counts the beats.The Bricks That Built the Houses is punctuated with metaphors that roar from its pages forcing you to recite the storm and read aloud. And that’s how it should be read. As if to a child; a mother, a lover, a loved one who’s lost their patience. It is a book to share and breathe; in all of its comedy, clarity, calamity and confusion, it is profound.

There is so much I haven’t spoken about. All I can say is: read it. Let your eyes drop a match on this book and she’ll be burning next to you for a long time to come. Her words summon nostalgia like the scent of something forgotten. She excels at offering us descriptions of things, important things, that we don’t give ourselves the time to think about. Her focus is trained on perspective and personality, sharing your body with another you. Her works help to reach the understanding that, individually and collectively, we are all more than the sum of our parts.