The Night-Soil Men

Book of the Day: New Statesman

Broady's major work of fiction, nearly a decade in the writing, explores the origins and development of the Independent Labour Party – the working-class political movement founded in Bradford in 1893. Detailing the exploits, fortunes, and relationships of three central characters: passionate Fred Jowett, ruthless Philip Snowden (later, the Labour Party's first chancellor), and the licentious and unforgettable Victor Grayson.

Spanning four decades, the novel covers the socialist foment and activism of fin-de-siècle Britain, the impact of the First World War and the changing landscape of the interwar years, as social change points forward to a new politics and the reinvention of Britain, despite fierce resistance from the establishment and its allies. And all punctuated with sex, comrades, hustings, art, dialect and copious points of order.

With cameos of every leading socialist of the age, this sweeping generational tale is thrilling, revolutionary, ribald and laugh-out-loud funny.



(on previous work) Broady choreographs his imagery and themes with dexterity and verve … and infuses this book with an unusual kind of grace.



(on previous work) A poignant yet surreal love story … Eternity is Temporary vividly recalls 1976's long, hot summer of Pistols and pogoing.



(on previous work) It's full of drifting imagery, heady with the fever of first love, city heat and rock 'n' roll.



(on previous work) A pin-sharp depiction of the sex, sherry and shackles in a care home.



(on previous work) Broady counts as a true original, a writer who keeps our judgements nicely suspended and our senses keenly primed.



(on previous work) Broady writes with rude, comic dynamism.



(on previous work) Packed with vivid characters of extraordinary potential, this is a story where the everyday and the spectacular merge seamlessly.



(on previous work) A dark, shimmery story, full of damage and wonder.



(on previous work) Echoing the aspirations of its heroine, Broady's stunning narrative seems to hover in its own distinctive element and, at times, to soar and fly. In prose of poetic precision and poignancy, he touches on the deepest dreams of the human heart.



(on previous work) A skewed fairy tale, a hymn to water … Broady's descriptions of swimming are supple, fluid and memorable.



Arriving with opportune timing as polling day looms, it's an old fashioned, decade-spanning social realist saga dramatising the origins of the Labour party, running from the 1890s into the interwar years as seen by a trio of Left-wing politicians.

With fizzy dialogue and a buoyant sense of humour, the story unfolds crisply – and if Broady doesn't have much room for manoeuvre, he uses the historical novelist's trick of portraying sex lives to make his memorable character live on the page.



Broady brings tubfulls of humour, drama and fizzing exuberance to the ILP leaders' zigzag journey from mill, market-place, pub and chapel to council-chamber, parliament and cabinet room. He takes ideas seriously but he makes those ideas dance. And he treats the historical record with scrupulous care while letting imagination take wing where the sources stop.



There's a control and ease to the writing that feels so timeless and graceful. It's also a very funny novel.



The Night-Soil Men is an electric piece of writing, deft and funny and occasionally obscene. As an evocation of the left's long struggle between radicalism and electability, it is perfectly timed to the current moment – which is impressive, given that Broady spent a decade writing it. No novel this year will give a better background to the dichotomy of power and principle that is at the heart of our new Labour government.



The Night-Soil Men is a moving portrayal, in a series of vignettes whose dates are helpfully supplied in the chapter headings, of friendship, comradeship – not without hostilities, rivalries and betrayals – founded on a shared vision of a political Utopia every bit as alluring and illusory today as it was then. Published, finally and fortuitously, in what is both an election year and the centenary of the first Labour government in Britain, this novel's time has now arrived.



The Night Soil Men is a fascinating novel that readily engages both with the historical context in which it is set and also the need to tell an entertaining narrative. Broady walks the tightrope between introducing historical facts and allowing the emotions of the characters to come to the forefront and guide the reader's journey through this important moment in British history. It is a novel that is easy to fall fully into and immerse yourself in the world of Jowett, Snowden and Grayson and will certainly leave any reader with a greater appreciation of both the struggles and achievements of those early Labour pioneers.



Broady's long narrative, covering the early years of Socialism in Yorkshire, its chief architects and their slow rise to significance in the wider arc of the movement, is beautifully rendered; the sights, sounds and smells of contemporary Bradford, are delivered in accretions and the received effect is profoundly satisfying. A genuine page-turner, Broady's efforts gird his novel with authenticity and paint a compelling and even-handed picture of industrial foment, of the presence of self-serving agendas alongside sincerity of motive, and of pragmatism determining the direction of political expedience.