Iron Bird

Remember Animal Farm? Remember the Seven Commandments? Well, this time it’s the creatures in the zoological gardens that are attempting to manage their own affairs. And instead of a critique of communism the allegory is the life of Margaret Thatcher. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch. Yet even so, there’s no escaping the Iron Lady’s iconic status as the architect of modern Britain. Or her fascination for novelists. “We could… (more)

Remember Animal Farm? Remember the Seven Commandments? Well, this time it’s the creatures in the zoological gardens that are attempting to manage their own affairs. And instead of a critique of communism the allegory is the life of Margaret Thatcher. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch. Yet even so, there’s no escaping the Iron Lady’s iconic status as the architect of modern Britain. Or her fascination for novelists. “We could never have invented a character like this.” Ian McEwan Of course, this isn’t Thatcher’s first appearance in the pages of fiction. She danced into Alan Hollinghurst’s THE LINE OF BEAUTY. She toddled into a short story by Hilary Mantel. But she has never been elevated to the status of protagonist before. Isn’t it about time, then, that she gave her flight feathers a good preen, sharpened the gutting blade on the tip of her beak and stepped up to take the leading role in a comic novel? Disrespectful? Perhaps. But despite its irreverent humour THE IRON BIRD isn’t an exercise in malice. Indeed, as Richard T Kelly recently observed, “all fiction begins in empathy, and a politician is a complex … creature, just like you and me”. Even one that has been transformed into a bird of prey. Empathy for Margaret Thatcher? Is such a thing even possible? Well, love her or loathe her, that’s the gauntlet that THE IRON BIRD throws down. And so it maintains a sharp focus on the beginning and end of its protagonist’s life, and takes a satirical swipe at the Milk Snatcher from these directions. It is, then, both a coming-of-age tale, exploring the formation of the fledgling Prime Minister’s formidable character, and a private audience at the bars of the old bird’s cage. First-person prose takes us into her damaged mind. But of course, the late Baroness is an unreliable narrator. Has she been persuaded to accept this speaking engagement, or is the audience of animals she is addressing a figment of her imagination? And what about that fledgling Prime Minister? What about that insignificant little specimen preparing for its maiden flight? What turned a grocer’s daughter from Grantham into the most powerful woman in the world? What put all that infamous iron into her soul?