When a good author gets hold of a classic theme, like Antigone for example, and applies it to an important current topic like what happens to Muslim families when politicians are trading on hatred and fear, the result is likely to be a gripping read.
That’s why although Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire is a story about life in the UK in the early 21st century, her acknowledgements include thanks to the translators of Sophocles with special mentions for Ann Carons, Seamus Heaney and Ali Smith.
I noted when I picked this book up that it was published in 2017 (it was mysteriously in the new titles section in the library in August 2024). That date is probably why I missed it (we Labour Party officers were a tad busy around then). It reads incredibly well in 2024. When I’d finished reading it, which I did in two severely distracted days (we say unputdownable a lot but this one really was.) I was both elated and traumatised.
“It’s like a Greek tragedy here!”
In those strange, heady hours after you’ve finished reading an emotionally demanding novel, odd connections quietly call from your back-brain. This time, for me, an email from Paul Flynn MP came back to mind. The word had gone out that the little clutch of over-privileged, currently outraged MPs who could not believe the membership of the Labour Party had ballooned in support of Jeremy Corbyn, were planning what they thought would be a deadly strike.
They had tried everything to discredit him and were now in the process of “falling on their swords” whilst suffering from “heavy hearts”, one by one, in an attempt to convince Corbyn he had no support, they sent in their cabinet resignations. Unfortunately for them, we Party members, officers and councillors were emailing in our support in our thousands and the next morning, when they were planning to table a no-confidence vote, thousands upon thousands of us were outside in Parliament Square, demonstrating in unequivocal terms what support for Corbyn’s leadership looked like, which is why we were still there in 2017 trying to win an election, opposed by the Tories, the media and the established Labour Party.
Paul Flynn broke the mould in the parliamentary Labour Party by declaring that he’d supported every Labour leader since Attlee, and he wasn’t about to turn his back on Corbyn. During the night of the dramatic resignations (yes, Keir Starmer joined the “heavy hearted” parade) Flynn had the job of acknowledging the deluge of supportive emails from officers, members and trade unions, and he opened his thanks emails with “it’s like a Greek tragedy here.”
Home Fires
In the early chapters of Home Fires, we see the young people encountering each other, becoming entangled, some from a fairly typical Asian background London Muslim family, the others the children of an ambitious career politician (one of those brown skinned Muslim background ones all the political parties now make such capital out of). We see the young generation struggling with the strictures of the Prevent culture set up by people like Amber Rudd and Theresa May, and the reverberations of media-led aggression. We see them being set up for a fall but we cling and we hope and we look forward… and despite knowing this is based on a Greek tragedy… absolutely anything else I might say will be a spoiler.
Things you can’t unsee
By the final chapters – well, I would refer all the people currently asking former Labour Party members to be patient and give Starmer a chance to prove himself, to page 164 (if you’re reading the paperback version) where the character in question remembers life before he’d seen behind the scenes in politics, and he “remembered how it felt to float on the surface of freedom and safety, to feel himself buoyed up by it, and longing tugged at his heart.”
Anything else I could say would be a spoiler, so let’s call to mind the huge range of people who came together, and worked together, in support of the Corbyn-led party. People who are now set apart by all the wedges Starmer’s regime helped to drive into UK life. I’m remembering all the people I met, I’m remembering the manager of a superb Indian restaurant near me coming out of (from my point of view) hazy restaurant managerhood at a Labour Party meeting, coming into focus and telling his story, saying “everyone joined the party for Corbyn.” We were actually meeting our own neighbours because of Corbyn. We were starting to heal all those divides.
Ah well, rather than risk any spoilers, I’ve written a review that’s mostly a nostalgic nod to Paul Flynn MP – rest in power, comrade – and the millions who rallied under Corbyn. For all of their sakes, Kamila Shamsie’s book about how things were back in 2017 is a great book to read now, if you didn’t get around to it then.
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Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 