Written by Ellie Robson
Peter Newman’s debut novel The Vagrant follows multiple narratives set in a newly war-torn land. We primarily follow the journey of the Vagrant, who is smuggling two very important items across the land. The novel is interspersed with extracts that date back to eight years before the current story with more recent flashbacks to a year ago, and these provide some background on the war and our main character.
The Vagrant is definitely a unique novel, but the first few chapters were pretty confusing and for a while I thought I was going to give up on the book entirely. Background on the war and the various groups that had formed were gradually given to the reader at a normal pace, so it took a little while to identify the issue. The Vagrant is a character who doesn’t speak, which is an extremely interesting attribute to give to a protagonist, but in addition to this we also get no internal monologue or thoughts from him. This can give the reader a sense of loss or lack of understanding, but this is quickly fixed once events and information fall into place and allows the reader to learn about the Vagrant and his character at the same pace as those around him.
One of the items that the Vagrant carries with him is an infant not yet capable of speech, so until others join their party, the emotional connection between the child and Vagrant is emphasised. This lack of speech demonstrates how powerful speech can be, but also shows that without it connections can still be built. The interactions between the two still melted my heart even though it purely relied on external behaviour. The lack of commentary also served the novel rather well in that it put him in the position of being an omniscient narrator. This meant that it took longer to get a grasp on the story, but was ultimately more rewarding.
Particularly in the earlier half of the novel, the flashbacks to the past were my favourite parts—the characters present in these were given more personality and back story than our main characters, but gradually this personality and connection trickled through to the main narrative. I realised that until this point I’ve made this novel sound like hard work to get through, but once you push through the initial confusion, and are willing to pick up information in other ways this novel becomes extremely fun and interesting.
Another one of my favourite things was one of the first group of characters we come across, who end up adding a man named Harm to the Vagrant’s journey. Due to the inability of the other two characters to communicate through speech, Harm often speaks aloud his own thoughts, but also those that he believes the Vagrant is having, and as the two spend more time together we learn more about our protagonist this way. And of course, the interactions between the pair of older men and the infant constantly tugs at your heart-strings. The bond between these characters is immensely powerful and I ended up having strong emotions in response to events that affected them.
One thing that stood out to me when learning about him were the morals of the Vagrant. Even when I thought he was doing something morally wrong, we would learn not long after that the Vagrant had some explanation for his actions. The English Literature student side of me can’t help but wonder who is narrating the novel; we can’t be seeing things through the eyes of the Vagrant because he gives us little information to work with, but there are no other candidates for narrator. Although you get the impression throughout the novel that the Vagrant and his growing group of friends are definitely on the side of good, it is unclear how much unconscious bias the narrative holds, and how reliable the version of events we are given is.
This novel is definitely a difficult one to capture in a summary or review without spoiling anything, and the best way to get a sense of it is to read it for yourself. Interactions with various “evil” characters force the reader to constantly re-evaluate what they know and think about certain types of creatures in the novel.
Ultimately, The Vagrant is a fun and engaging story that takes a while to get into, and challenges the reader, but is a rewarding and unique read. I went from considering leaving it as a ‘Do Not Finish’ after the first few chapters to immediately buying the sequel as soon as I was finished!
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Synopsis | Goodreads
The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape, carrying nothing but a kit-bag, a legendary sword and a baby. His purpose is to reach the Shining City, last bastion of the human race, and deliver the sword, the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war. But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place.
