Downriver

Downriver (1991), Iain Sinclair’s debut novel, is a multi-faceted look into life in and around London’s docklands. One of Sinclair’s best known novels, Downriver is the story of London’s docklands during the rule of the Widow, an exaggerated version of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. By the time Downriver went to press, Margaret Thatcher had already resigned from her post. The book takes place primarily in London’s East End. The author as narrator, along with his rag-tag group of companions, is a local who works for a production company, sniffing out authentic docklands. These docklands comprise a rundown warehouse district and wharf once slated for an upgraded redevelopment during the boon of the early 1980s; however, the soon-to-follow recession has rendered its abandonment. The task of the film crew is to uncover whatever historical interest they can find.

The novel is told as a set of twelve stories taking place in the near future but speckled with bits of the past. Sinclair’s heavy use of abstract language and dense imagery give way to an intensity of historical detail in describing these broken-down locales. These individual narratives include sexual encounters, death, ghosts, and the wrecks of London. The novel includes darker characters such as dirty-barflies and Cockney-accented wharf rats. This commissioned film crew, set to document the cruel course that industry oftentimes takes, picks through the river’s detritus, hoping to expose the origin of a broken city. This is a dark and disenfranchised society on the cusp of both a lifestyle and heritage attack by capitalist and imperialist forces.

The muddy Thames River is the lifeblood of the story, running through each narrative, connecting these interlocking stories while washing clean the accumulated filth that inhabits these surroundings, permeating the lives of its inhabitants. The twelve sections of the book, A Narrative in Twelve Postcards, each with its own photograph, are Joblard’s own “Heart of Darkness.” They include pictures from colonial Africa, serving as illustrative backdrops for Sinclair’s tales. The overall tone is dark and somber with a bit of humor. The prose is heavy and densely packed, weighted down by the thickness of imagery. In direct contrast to the Thames, none of these twelve stories flows easily.



Though the stories are interconnected, one may read them out of order as the tales stand-alone. The reader is along for a ride on trips of Sinclair’s choosing. Downriver takes on an almost post-apocalyptic feel. Perhaps the saddest part conjured up is the wasted possibilities that lie in the wake of a place that has succumbed to the ravages of both time and circumstance. The literary references invoke a dark humor among the torture and degradation while offering no redemption. The writing is accomplished, quotable, yet uncompromising. The language is expansive and the English symbolism, London locale, and the politics of the time serve to add weight and heft to this ambitious book.

Iain Sinclair is a Welsh-born writer and poet, bookseller, and filmmaker. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and the London School of Film Technique (now known as the London Film School). Much of his work takes place in London within the framework of psychogeography. His early writings were mostly poetry. He owned his own small press, Albion Village Press and many of his earliest works were published there. His early books: Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge are a mix of poetry, essay, and fiction. They were followed by White Chappell and Scarlet Tracings. Sinclair was for quite some time best known for Downriver, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award.

A large portion of Sinclair’s recent work includes the revival of the psychogeography of London. He has written about such places as the Fairmead House’s private insane asylum, High Beach in the middle of Epping Forest in Essex, his own home in Helpston, and another psychiatric hospital known as the Claybury Asylum. He currently resides in Haggerston, located in the London Borough of Hackney and also has a home in Hastings, East Sussex.