Cardiff born author Daniel Robinson has just written his first novel Marvin 9T5. A gritty but humorous coming of age story set in mid nineties South Wales. Chris Andrews sat down with Dan for a coffee and a chat.
For those who haven’t checked it out yet, can you give us a bit of background on the story?
Sure. Marvin 9T5 is about an isolated, troubled teenager from a valleys council estate who feels his delinquent behaviour ultimately drove his mother to leave home. He tracks her down to Cardiff in an effort to rebuild his dysfunctional family and relieve his guilty conscience but ends up on the streets, immersed in an underworld full of unsavoury characters, forced to survive by making tough decisions which teach him valuable lessons about love, friendship and life.
MARVIN 9T5, much like parts of Cardiff, seems to have its own language. Why did you choose to use a specific dialect when writing this book?
The short answer is authenticity. MARVIN 9T5 deals with uncompromising subject matter and I needed the language to be equally uncompromising. It’s a very culturally specific book – I wanted to capture the South Wales/Cardiff council estate experience as accurately as possible, and dialects are an integral part of that. I appreciate that writing in the vernacular carries the risk of alienation from a broader audience but I don’t think that necessarily has to be the case. From childhood Oor Wullie annuals to writers like Irvine Welsh, Niall Griffiths and Lloyd Robson, some of the most immersive and ultimately rewarding literature I’ve come across has been written in non-standard English, and I wanted to incorporate that level of realism in my own work.
Regarding some of the issues faced in the book, do you think attitudes have changed since then. Do you think Marvin would be dealt with differently these days?
Unfortunately the issues in MARVIN 9T5 are as relevant today as they were in the nineties, perhaps more so. Our regression as a society since Thatcher doesn’t appear to be in any danger of losing steam, and class discrimination in particular is paraded openly by many without embarrassment or censure. From the “chav” epidemic to the austerity drive against “benefits scroungers” to the backlash over Brexit, disdain for “common” people is pervasive, and that troubles me. As someone who grew up on a council estate in this era, MARVIN 9T5 is my conscious effort to re-humanise people who have been savaged by the neoliberal right and kicked to the kerb by the Guardian reading left. Essentially I want my novel to serve as a reminder that beneath even the roughest exteriors there are thinking, feeling human beings who perhaps haven’t benefitted from the advantages that many others are lucky enough to take for granted.
Who/What was the inspiration for writing this book?
In addition to the social and cultural inspirations I’ve already mentioned, this is also a deeply personal project for me, drawing on my feelings about the death of my first serious girlfriend many years ago. By exploring themes such as guilt and redemption, the search for second chances and the realisation that they aren’t always possible, this novel is my attempt to exorcise a lot of my feelings of guilt and grief which continue to haunt me to this day. So yeah, quite deep stuff but MARVIN 9T5 isn’t a dreary read, there’s grim subject matter but constantly counteracted by good humour, by hope and by good people. Just like real life, I suppose.
This is only your first novel, what are your future writing plans.
We’ll see how this one goes, I guess! Writing a novel is hard work and I’m not an author who tells stories for the sake of stories. To see a project through I really need an emotional investment and something important to say. I feel like I’ve done that with MARVIN 9T5, although there are a few more things I’d like to get off my chest, so watch this space.
Purchase Marvin 9T5 here
Photography by PHIL BROOKES
