An actor turns the tables on a brutal critic in ‘Bring the House Down'

Washington Post

a day ago

In his 1878 travel book 'Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes,' Robert Louis Stevenson declared that his native city wouldn't appeal to everyone. 'For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence,' he wrote. In Charlotte Runcie's Edinburgh-set debut, the weather is the least of her characters' problems. For the man at the heart of the book — and at the center of a potentially reputation-destroying and career-ending furor — the Scottish capital proves to be 'unhomely and harassing' as a result of his reckless actions and ruthless words.
'Bring the House Down' plays out during the Edinburgh Fringe, the annual arts festival that comprises a dizzying range of actors, musicians, comedians and artists. Runcie, who is British, spent years as a journalist reviewing shows at the Fringe, and she channels her experience of the event in general and cutthroat criticism in particular in her accomplished novel.
Alex Lyons, chief theater critic at a London newspaper, is a man of extremes who awards shows either five stars or, as is more often the case, one star. 'Anything in between was air.' At the Fringe, he writes a lacerating review of American performance artist Hayley Sinclair's first-ever one-woman show, 'Climate Emergence-She.' Later on, Alex meets Hayley at a bar and takes her back to his place for a one-night stand — while conveniently neglecting to mention his hatchet job, which has gone to press.
When Hayley reads the review the next morning and discovers the man she slept with is its author, she fights back. Retitling her show 'The Alex Lyons Experience,' and repurposing it into an excoriating character assassination of the unscrupulous critic, Hayley immediately has a hit on her hands. As her story goes viral, her show expands to spotlight the widespread harm Alex has caused as both a critic and a philanderer, and to examine new ways of calling out and stamping out misogyny in the arts. Alex's colleague — and Runcie's narrator — Sophie Rigden looks on in awe as Hayley captivates her audience. 'It was like watching Botticelli's Venus come to life as a hipster enchantress,' she observes. 'She was essential, elemental, primordial with commanding rage.'
While Hayley enjoys, and harnesses, her newfound fame, Alex crashes and burns. At one pivotal moment, it looks like it might be more than his career that goes up in smoke. Sophie tries to offer him support, but soon she is buckling under the weight of her own problems. Her workload multiplies when she takes over Alex's duties. Her emotional strain intensifies: She is mourning her mother, desperately missing her young son at home in London, wrestling with conflicting feelings for her previously unfaithful partner and weighing up the consequences of a drunken encounter. Can she regain control and come out on top like Hayley, or is she destined for disaster like Alex?
This is a smart, sharp and compulsively readable first novel that provides food for thought on a variety of complex topics. A less skilled writer would have adopted a strident tone and resorted to speechifying during the passages that engage with themes such as male power and privilege, or publicity, notoriety and cancel culture. However, Runcie strikes a perfect balance, and instead of tub-thumping or finger-pointing, explores each issue with nuance and evenhandedness. She is especially insightful on both the criticism of art and the art of criticism. 'Personal recommendation has been replaced with consensus,' Sophie muses. 'We rely on there being hundreds of people rating everything, a critical mass of approval.'
A novel isn't carried by its big ideas alone. It needs strong characters to convey them and react to them. Fortunately, Runcie's creations are forceful presences, all the more so because they are intriguingly multifaceted and resist cut-and-dried classification. Hayley is hell-bent on getting justice, yet there is more to her than a woman scorned or an avenging angel. Similarly, Alex has harsh judgments and selfish motives, and is given to 'tricking women into thinking he could give them what they wanted, only to maim them emotionally the moment they opened themselves up,' but he is no mere one-dimensional hate figure. Sandwiched between the two is Sophie, at once a 'sarcastic, sceptical, media-savvy hack girl with a flip answer to everything' and a sensitive young woman with divided loyalties who refuses to cast aspersions on either party.
All of which sounds serious and thought-provoking. This is only partly true, for the novel is also fun and frequently witty. The dialogue sparkles. Alex's mother, acclaimed actress and 'national treasure' Dame Judith Lyons, steals scenes. Throughout, Runcie showcases the giddy whirl of the Fringe with its lively crowds, wild parties and madcap acts ('Hamlet' performed on a bouncy castle, confessions to the 'Chill Pope' conducted in portable toilets).
Alex justifies his brutal takedowns by arguing that 'people like reading bad reviews.' They also like reading good books. 'Bring the House Down' is one such book: not a one-star flop but a five-star triumph.
Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and New Republic.
By Charlotte Runcie
Doubleday. 304 pp. $28