A Pint and a Pie with Gordon Burn

Almost a year ago, on 17 July 2010, Gordon Burn died, unexpectedly. I was part-way through a trip through France, stopping off in Burgundy, when a colleague called me to let me know.

I had just been with Gordon three weeks before: lunch at The Princess Louise pub in Holborn. A pie and a pint. Or two – pints that is, not pies. Quite a regular ‘business’ meeting. But one that had become more irregular since his health and the acquisition of a long-desired rural idyll in the Borders, had pulled him away from the social side of London literary life. I envied him his retreat back North: a place we had both extricated ourselves from out of necessity and distaste (with some reluctance), some years before.

Working with Gordon was high-wire stuff. Frequently, contracted books would radically change character mid-stream. But when the manuscript arrived, you would realise even though this was a book on Duncan Edwards rather than Bob Dylan, the method and manner of composition and reflection on things observed was what mattered; the ostensible subject, somehow, being secondary. Gordon’s schooling, his instinct, and his eye, were journalistic; and yet his vision was that of a poet. Lines from one of Wallace Stevens’ late late poems (and one of his finest), Not Ideas about the Things but the Thing Itself come to mind:

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

Gordon was always, resolutely, instinctively, attuned to that ‘scrawny cry’: whether it be the cries of horror that emerged from Gloucester in the late ‘80s in the wake of the West enquiry, or the silent cries of Madeleine McCann that resonate across the pages of his finest, and perhaps greatest novel, Born Yesterday. Within those scrawny cries could so often be found the narrative of greater significance, the insidious code-line of ‘the information’ as Martin Amis would have it in one of his celebrated ‘90s novels.

If Gordon were alive today, a year on from his passing, I have absolutely no idea what he would be writing about. And that was always the thrill of working with him. What I do know is he would find the story of Raoul Moat, the gunman at large in his native Northumbria, fascinating. I also suspect he might have been resolutely bored, and vocal in his articulation of such ennui, by this over-hyped, celebrity-soaked, Jabulani-plagued World Cup.

I know he would be raging, laughing, observing, interpreting in his own uniquely-calibrated way. He would be finding stories where other journalists, other novelists, could see none. And he would be testing himself against an improbable deadline with the guts of a reporter and the courage of a visionary artist.

Gordon Burn: the essential chronicler of life, art, death and prawn sandwiches in pre- and post-millennial Britain. If you haven’t read him start with Born Yesterday, Best and Edwards, Alma Cogan, or perhaps, if you are brave, Happy Like Murderers. He was a fearless artist. And I will continue to celebrate his achievement.