The latest book by Joseph O’Neill, titled Godwin, encapsulates elements that readers have found appealing in his prior works while trailblazing into unchartered territory, especially seen in the exploration of some of Africa’s most impoverished countries. Godwin unfolds through the narrative of questionable football scouts. The story insightfully elaborates on crucial subjects such as colonialism’s impacts, immigrant struggles, international business challenges, capitalist criticisms and personal family disputes.
Central to the narrative is Mark Wolfe, a middle-aged, married American who ventures to England to assist his financially struggling half-brother Geoff, an ambitious football scout. They have a video featuring an emerging superstar, Godwin, a teenager brimming with talent from Benin.
In their search for Godwin, abetted by the seasoned Frenchman Lefebvre, they embark on a trip filled with adventure and hurdles ranging from Africa’s unfamiliar western terrain, the brothers’ manipulative mother, Faye, along with the incessant scheming and double-dealing from everyone involved. While O’Neill tactfully adds humour to the story, the narrative’s foundation remains rooted in the harsh realities of cutthroat political tactics.
O’Neill, a Cork native born in 1963, currently resides in New York and is a faculty member at Bard College. His previous works include four novels: Netherland, which made it to the Man Booker Prize longlist; The Dog; This Is the Life; and The Breezes, along with his memoir, Blood-Dark Track. His short stories can be found in the New Yorker and Harper’s, and his critical evaluations have been featured in esteemed platforms like the Guardian, the New York Times, and Granta.
Honourable mentions in contemporary crime fiction are novels from authors Oliver Harris, Scarlett Thomas, Lucy Foley, Andrea Mara, and Hugo Rifkind.
O’Neill is innately adept at storytelling, as seen through his work, Godwin. The complex, intricate, and occasionally awe-inspiring construction of the book is teeming with tales nested within tales. He possesses a keen eye for nuances, vividly painting images related to West African skies as “a white sky, the colour of tin”, and portraying a certain individual as one who has an “exaggerated spring in his stride”. His storytelling approach inherently contains suspense, defined by unveiling the mission’s essence, subsequently prolonging the revelation of its success.
Sometimes, this technique encounters issues, as a significant portion of the football events are narrated rather than directly experienced. Godwin, for instance, only briefly appears towards the book’s closure, which may signify the overriding exploitation theme, but it also somehow keeps his seeming skill and character distant from the reader.
A more significant problem resides in the secondary narrative, which constitutes almost a third of the book and competes with Mark’s tale. Set in a Pittsburgh office threatened with a hostile takeover and was about to witness a writers collection’s experience. Mark’s boss, Lakesha, narrates these parts with her voice remarkably crafted, sharp-witted, penetrating, and completely modern. It sparked an eagerness for more insights about her past and her adept handling of the office politics. However, it left an overall feeling that despite both narratives being connected by common themes – systemic racial bias and the damaging effects of wealth and power – they could have independently made two superb novels.
O’Neill’s captivating and insightful writing shines in Godwin, especially for those who are intrigued by football. His depiction of the sport’s history is vivid as he outlines high-profile plane crashes, discusses the class structure foundation within English football, and unveils the early 90s influx of foreign-born footballers in European leagues. His ability to illustrate the tangibility of sports such as the speed and strength of a player versus the intangible qualities like their nerve, ability, or game understanding is particularly notable.
O’Neill adroitly interweaves serious matters like African politics, office dynamics, and football itself into an engaging narrative that is educational yet never pedantic. In Godwin, he portrays multiple concurrent crises – spanning generations, politics, environment, and economy – in the context of an ever-evolving world. Touted as a mix of a football anthology and office doctrine, it ultimately warns against how human folly, especially the kind which is deliberate, contagious, and oddly enough, greedy, can serve as a detriment in today’s world.