When I was first asked to review a book titled ‘Night Time Economy’, I rather foolishly assumed that I would be reviewing a non-fiction piece echoing what was in the news at the time – the continual decline of the night time economy being seen across the country, and particularly in the West Midlands. Naturally then, I was more than a little relieved to find that I instead had been tasked with reviewing a collection of short stories concerning the (mostly) nocturnal lives of the good people of our region. The review snippets on the cover promised ‘first-rate tales’ and ‘the best of the West Midlands’ – a lot to live up to, but I had faith.

Night Time Economy is made up of a diverse collection of stories that take the reader all across the West Midlands; from the gutted high street of Cannock to a hoarder’s home in Dorridge, we are treated to all that the region, and the authors, have to offer. Love is a key theme in many of the stories: unrequited love, controlling love, love of neighbours, the lack of love in places where it should be abundant – love and the night time share an undeniable connection, and many of the stories in this book work to explore and examine what this connection really means, from the troubled love between a single mother and her expelled five-year-old in Esme Brown’s ‘Slug’ to Sadie Kaye’s ‘I, Robotess’, where a Brummie android in the near future struggles with feelings of identity and her unreciprocated attempts at love. 

Throughout the book, there are an almost countless number of references to places in Birmingham. The authors constantly reference street names, neighbourhoods, pubs and anything else you can think of to cement the fact that these stories do, in fact, take place in the West Midlands.
My initial reaction to this was not good, even writing a snarky remark in my notebook, which I’d planned to work into this review:

‘Some of the authors write like they get commission for every part of Birmingham they name-drop’.

However, in between reading Night Time Economy for this review, I’ve read other books in my free time and, in doing so, noticed just how commonplace it is for books to reference real-world locations as a way to keep their narratives flowing. I hadn’t become aware of just how prevalent these references were as I’d never actually been to these places, and so they simply existed in the fabric of whatever story I was reading. What I had initially taken to be evidence of a lack of nuance and subtlety on the part of the writers, therefore, actually turned out to be a symptom of Birmingham’s neglect by the literary world. I have read countless stories which take place in London and make reference to streets and places I have never heard of, yet Night Time Economy might be the first book I’ve read which makes reference to the places that make up Birmingham, and by extension, my life.

For me, the collection was at its best when it tried to break out of these moulds cast by the city’s literary neglect. Birmingham is more than a place with a high crime rate and poor driving standards – it is a city full of culture, and the stories which pushed the boundaries of what this collection could be were what stood out to me the most – stories like ‘The Era of Endless Street’ by Charlie Wilkinson, where a down on his luck man finds himself in a kafkaesque nightmare set in Handsworth (not a sentence I thought I would ever write) or ‘The Trees’ by Matthew Storer, where a man of nervous disposition prepares for the trees to finally invade and take over Birmingham. These stories are not defined by their taking place in the West Midlands, and they don’t let themselves be defined by what is expected from stories set in the second city. 

It’s hard to come to a conclusion about Night Time Economy. The stories presented range so much in style and concept that it is simply not possible to review them as a singular entity.
Whilst I can’t say I enjoyed every story presented, I will say that the highlights certainly made finishing the book worthwhile. Birmingham’s art scene is in desperate need of advocacy on a national level, and while it would be an exaggeration to call this book the solution to Birmingham’s recognition problem, I think it’s fair to say that it’s exactly the kind of thing that we need more of.

Find out more about the publisher of ‘Night Time Economy’ here.