On an inclement evening in 1434, a minstrel makes his appearance at Durham Cathedral to captivate his audience of esteemed clergymen and gentlemen. He’s called Mother Naked, and he’s not the expected entertainment, but he dismisses such matters, stating he’s a highly skilled and experienced Gleeman. Moreover, he hopes the exquisite claret has soothed their lengthy wait for the night’s diversion. This sets the stage for Glen James Brown’s second novel, which is daring and vivacious in its storytelling. Mother Naked is ready to narrate his tale which harshly criticises the gravely imbalanced society that these men symbolise.
This novel, Mother Naked, is a brilliant specimen of speculative fiction. Brown extracts a scant piece of historic evidence, a line in the cathedral’s records of 1433-1434, which references a minstrel “Mother Naked” who was inadequately compensated four pence for his performance. Upon this short note, he orchestrates a narrative of terror, violence and class struggle. The Black Death has blitzed its way through England, destabilising age-old administrative systems; the reverberations of the Peasants’ Rebellion are already noticeable. However, in this pocket of northern England, traditional norms persist. Serfs are obliged to work on their lords’ fields first, before obtaining the right to cultivate their own tiny plots of land, and poverty is widespread. With the countryside gradually depopulating, blame for such afflictions is conveniently assigned, including to a creature known as the Fell Wraith, accused of decimating a close-by village and its inhabitants four decades prior.
The tale goes beyond mere supernatural horror. The minstrel declares his narrative isn’t simply a ghost story meant to scare children, but serves a loftier purpose. He then unveils his bond to the disappeared village, augmenting our understanding that the village’s demise had less to do with spectral creatures and more with power imbalances and social inequality. In this context, and aside from Glen James Brown’s proficiency in the medieval English vernacular, Mother Naked narrates a deeply contemporary tale. It concentrates on the veiled whispers we heed, whispers that inject poison into our societal norms – distractions that shift blame and stigmatise those ‘others’ we find all too easy to vilify and despise.