Over
Christmas we rearranged chairs to allow more people to sit around our table,
and I rearranged bookshelves to make room for the first eight Slough House
novels (to be joined by the ninth, when it comes out in paperback). Mick Herron
is a great writer, consistently achieving an addictive blend of spy thriller
and very dark comedy.
Slough
House is (allegedly) where MI5 redeploys failed spies who might pursue legal
challenges to being made redundant, with the intention of grinding them down
with work so unfulfilling that they chose to walk away. By definition, the
residents of Slough House — referred to as Slow Horses — are F*ck Ups (have
messed up with serious consequences) or Issues (potentially compromising
addictions to alcohol, drugs, or gambling; PTSD) — or both — condemned to live
out their days under the infuriatingly watchful eye of the deeply (darkly
comically) obnoxious Jackson Lamb.
What
makes whatever happens to this unlikely combination of less-than-likeable
characters compelling is that it is clear that Mick Herron loves them (even if
he is willing to bump characters off relentlessly for the sake of the
storyline). And though he would never admit it to them (and perhaps not to
himself) and, even if he could, they (being F*ck Ups or Issues) wouldn’t be
able to accept it, Jackson Lamb loves them, too.
I
don’t live in the world of security intelligence-gathering. But that isn’t the
point. I recognise what I am reading because almost everyone I know (including
myself) is either a F*ck Up or an Issue. Seriously. And because, as a priest —
and, indeed, as a (as any) follower of Jesus — I am called to love them
(including myself) even so.
To
love the unlikeable, to really love them, which is the only thing that
transforms anyone, calls for a different kind of intelligence-gathering. One
built not on ‘what disaster might we prevent (by whatever means/force
necessary)?’ (sin management) but ‘what goodness, what beauty, might become possible,
which we could never have imagined?’ The slow and often seemingly pointless
task of getting to know what makes that person tick; their hopes and dreams,
their worries and fears; their sense of self, constructed from stories, lies,
half-truths. The shame they need to be freed from. The dignity that is, in
fact, inherent to them, that needs to be recognised.
So,
I am enjoying the slow horses and appreciating what they have to teach me.
