Redemption story (From York Press)

Redemption story

9:52am Saturday 27th February 2010 in

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ROBERT Dinsdale’s debut novel, The Harrowing, has been described as a reworking of the Cain and Abel story.

You can see why. It is the tale of two brothers, William and Samuel Redmond, set against the backdrop of the hell that was the First World War – and of fraternal jealousy and rivalry that leads to an attempt at murder.

The novel opens in Leeds in a snowy January, 1916. William, soon to join the Chapeltown Rifles, and his younger brother, Samuel, wander up on to the moors above Leeds – and there Samuel, who feels he has always been overshadowed by his brother, stoves William’s head in with a stone.

But William doesn’t die. He recovers – to find that Samuel has been sent to the front, in France and Belgium. William follows – bent not on revenge, but on forgiveness… It’s for that reason that Robert, who grew up in Northallerton and studied in Leeds before moving down to London, doesn’t really see the novel as a reworking of Cain and Abel at all. It is more a retelling of another story – the one told in the apocryphal texts about Jesus’s “Harrowing of Hell”.

In these stories, Jesus travels into the underworld to rescue the souls imprisoned there in order to lead them to paradise. So the novel is ultimately about redemption and forgiveness, rather than hatred and murder.

But it needed an appropriately hellish backdrop.

Robert, 28, had not specifically set out to write a First World War novel. “But I wanted to set the story in the worst hell in England’s history – and Flanders fields were that,” he says.

The book, which was published by Faber last year, has been well received critically. But Robert himself admits that it is only loosely based on what actually happened in Flanders.

He has visited the war graves of Belgium and France – but he did not really strive for detailed historical accuracy, he admits.

“There is a hallucinatory, nightmarish quality to his battlefield scenes. “Particularly in the third section, where one of the brothers has deserted, and the other chases him across this blasted landscape. I wanted to make it as nightmarish as possible.”

You will be able to judge for yourself when Robert returns north to give a reading from his book at the York Literature Festival, which starts next month.

He didn’t have to be asked twice, he admits. Although he lives in London now, where he works for a small literary agency, he has always been fond of York. “It is a lovely place. When I was growing up in Northallerton, it was always the next big town that you’d go to visit. I’ve still got friends up in York.”

• The Harrowing, by Robert Dinsdale, is published by Faber and Faber, priced £12.99.

Robert will be at Waterstones in York from 6pm on March 24 to read from his book, as part of the York Literature Festival.

York Literature Festival highlights

• York Literary Walk, March 21, 10.30am and 2pm, leaves from gates of Museum Gardens, £5.50 • The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes – an exciting theatrical journey into the life of the great detective March 23-27, 7pm, York Theatre Royal, tickets £10-£18.

• Kate Atkinson in conversation with Roger Clark, March 25, 7pm, York St John University, £5.

• A night of erotic poetry and prose, Black Swan, Peasholme Green, March 26, 8-11pm, £5.

• Hands-on crime fiction for children, March 28, 1.30-3pm, York police station – a chance for children aged seven to 11 to visit Fulford Road police station and explore for themselves how crime fiction really takes shape. They will also get to learn the results of the crime writing competition run in conjunction with North Yorkshire Police. Free.

• To find out more about the festival, and how to book tickets, visit yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk