Review

Ex-gangster makes bleak, violent literary debut

Who They Was (above) by Gabriel Krauze (left) draws on his experiences with crime and drugs in his youth.
Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze (above) draws on his experiences with crime and drugs in his youth. PHOTO: HARPERCOLLINS

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FICTION

WHO THEY WAS

By Gabriel Krauze

4th Estate/Paperback/332 pages/ $28.35/Available at bit.ly/WhoTW_GK

4 stars

The first thing that may catch your attention is the novel's grammatically incorrect title, but it reflects the incongruity in author Gabriel Krauze's life.

Who They Was is incredibly raw, with Krauze drawing on his own experiences in his debut semi-autobiographical novel, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize this year.

Krauze, as his profile on the Booker Prize website reads, was personally "heavily involved in gangs, guns, stabbing and robbery, all while completing an English degree at Queen Mary's University". Now 34, he draws on his experiences between the ages of 18 and 22 in this adrenaline-charged novel, which opens with a mugging and blurs the line between fact and fiction.

Born in Britain to Polish immigrants, Krauze - like his persona in the novel - is known as Snoopz to his friends, Gabriel to his family and classmates, and Mr Krauze to authority figures like parole officers.

Krauze writes about a youth who is addicted to crime and drugs, all while juggling university coursework. The narrator, who makes no apologies for his crimes and takes a cavalier attitude towards violence, is arrested several times but decides to put his thug life behind him upon graduation.

This mirrors Krauze's life story. As he told news outlet Vice in an interview: "Readers are supposed to feel horrified."

The novel is an effective social commentary on discrimination and poverty, and the factors that might push youth to join a gang.

Krauze writes about the fatal shooting of an acquaintance in his neighbourhood of South Kilburn - a low-income district notorious for gang wars and a rampant drug trade in real life - that is barely investigated by the police. In ironic contrast, the police had been quick to respond to one of his robbery victims.

His prose is peppered with London street slang that adds realism to the book. Guys are "brers" and girls are "gyals" to Snoopz, who spends a lot of time "bunning it up (to) get mad charged" (smoking weed to get high) and "cotching with mandem in da endz" (hanging out with his mates in the neighbourhood).

But the language turns formal as he gets philosophical. Musing on Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy after a night of violent crime, he says: "Morality is just a rule of behaviour relative to the level of danger in which an individual lives.

"If you're living in dangerous times, you can't afford to live according to moral structures the way someone who lives in safety and peace can."

Who They Was is not the breeziest of reads and is polarising in its shocking amorality.

Who They Was (above) by Gabriel Krauze (left) draws on his experiences with crime and drugs in his youth.

Critics will say the book unapologetically glamorises and justifies violence, but it also gives a look into the mind of a streetwise, book-smart man who chooses a life of crime in his formative years.

If you like this, read: The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong (Picador, 2020, $31.36, available at bit.ly/theyoungteam). The debut novel of Scottish author Graeme Armstrong, told in local twang, is based on his real-life experiences, from joining a gang at 14 to his rehabilitation from drug addiction at 21.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 06, 2020, with the headline Ex-gangster makes bleak, violent literary debut. Subscribe