Life Stories #74: Damian Barr

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photo: Daisy Honeybunn

On this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, my guest is Damian Barr, and we’re talking about Maggie & Me, his story of “coming out and coming of age in 1980s Scotland.” We discussed his complex feelings towards then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher; on the one hand, he admired her messages of individualism and achievement, yet her economic policies had a devastating effect on his family and the community in which they lived—and the government’s condemnation of homosexuality, and even of the “promoting” of homosexuality, intensified the isolation he endured as he struggled to make sense of his identity.

We also talked about the abuse that young Barr suffered at the hands of a stepfather who’d already guessed at his gayness before he himself had put a name to it, and that got us talking about whether his parents had known as well:

“I remember the first time that somebody called me a poof, and they said it with such venom… More than that, they knew, they knew something about me that I didn’t know, and that was really disturbing. And I remember thinking, what is this thing that I don’t know, and I ran into the house to my mum and said, ‘Mum, mum, mum!” What is it? ‘Jason (or whatever his name was) just called me a poof! What’s a poof?’ And she didn’t say, That’s not you, or Tell me who this Jason is, or anything else; she just said, Don’t you worry about that—it’s okay.

I think she always knew. When I did come out, she wasn’t surprised. She was upset and sad, and she tried to ground me… My dad said, It’s not true. ‘Well, it is true.’ It’s just not true. Come back to me in a few years. And I went back to him in a few years and said, ‘Still true.’

And, among other things, we talk about how Barr came to write a memoir after making attempts at fiction—and why, once he plunged into nonfiction, he decided not to visit Scotland during the writing, or draw upon his journalistic training to interview the other major figures in that time of his life.

Listen to Life Stories #74: Damian Barr (MP3 file); or download this file by right-clicking (Mac users, option-click). Or subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes, where you can catch up with earlier episodes and be alerted whenever a new one is released. (And if you are an iTunes subscriber, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast!)

1 July 2014 | life stories |

At Home, at Anfield: Red or Dead

I first started seriously watching soccer with the 2010 World Cup, and when Premier League football started up later that summer, I began watching those games on the weekends. I kept an eye out for players that I’d seen competing in the Cup, but I didn’t form any particular club loyalties until early 2011, when Kenny Dalglish was appointed manager at Liverpool. I’m a sucker for sports history, you see, so even though I had no direct experience of Dalglish’s earlier career playing for and managing Liverpool from the late 1970s to the early ‘90s, the story of his return to Anfield (the team’s home stadium) resonated with me.

(As a rough analogy in American sports terms, imagine Phil Jackson wound up back with the Chicago Bulls—or with the New York Knicks, even.)

So I’d made a mental note about Red or Dead, David Peace’s novel about an even earlier period in Liverpool’s history, when I first heard about it earlier this year. Then I saw a finished copy at the Melville House display booth at BookExpo America, and with another World Cup coming, I moved it a bit higher up my reading list. I’m glad I did, though it’s easily the most challenging book about sports, fiction or nonfiction, that I’ve ever read.

Red or Dead is the story of Bill Shankly’s tenure as manager of Liverpool Football Club from 1959 to 1974, the stuff of legends on a par with Vince Lombardi’s time with Green Bay or Red Auerbach’s career with the Boston Celtics. Possibly even more legendary; I admit that I’m coming to the novel as an outsider, with an understanding of British sports culture that is more intellectual than intuitive, so at some level I have to estimate the emotional resonances.

That said, it’s clear how intently Peace feels those resonances, clear in every sentence he writes. Instead of telling Bill Shankly’s story in conventionally straightforward, almost journalistically observational prose, Peace adopts cadences and rhythms that generate an almost mythic aura, as he traces what feels like every single step of Shankly’s time at Liverpool. For example:

“On Saturday 3 March, 1962, Liverpool Football Club travelled to Fellows Park, Walsall. But Bert Slater did not travel to Fellows Park, Walsall. Bill Shankly had dropped Bert Slater. Bert Slater had played ninety-six consecutive games for Liverpool Football Club. But Bert Slater would never play another game for Liverpool Football Club. On Saturday 3 March, 1962, Jim Furnell travelled to Fellows Park, Walsall. It was Jim Furnell’s first match for Liverpool Football Club. Jim Furnell conceded one goal on his debut. And Liverpool Football Club drew one-all with Walsall Football Club.”

And that’s actually one of the more sparsely detailed accounts. There’s fifteen years’ worth of these match highlights (including the number of fans attending each game), peppered with locker room speeches, post-game conversations with opposing managers, and other behind the scenes anecdotes—not to mention a stirring invocation of the unofficial theme of Liverpool supporters, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Fifteen years following Bill Shankly and Liverpool Football Club “away from home, away from Anfield” and “at home, at Anfield,” match after match. I recognize that for some readers, that’s going to be a tough sell.
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19 June 2014 | read this |