By Heidi Simmons
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Glow
By Ned Beauman
Fiction
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Humans are chemical beings. Nearly 99 percent of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. Smaller chemical amounts, but no less important for life, include: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine and magnesium. In Ned Beauman’s, Glow, (Alfred Knopf, 256 pages) a search to alter human chemistry leads to manipulation and murder.
Born and raised in south London, Raf is 22 and ready to move on. His girlfriend has left him and he has given his landlord notice. Raf has a disorder, a condition called non-24 hour sleep/wake syndrome. Unlike a normal human being with a 24-hour interior clock, Raf is on a 25-hour clock putting him out of sync with the majority of the world. There is no cure for his problem. He believes that starting new somewhere else might help.
Meanwhile, Raf works for a pirate radio station as a dog walker. Rose is the guard dog that protects the radio’s tower from vandals and agencies that want to shut down the station. Raf’s lifestyle includes all night raves and the search for mind altering, recreational drugs. Perhaps some drug might cure his disorder or at the very least help. There is rumor of a new drug in town called Glow that he is eager to try.
While out walking Rose, Raf witnesses a kidnapping. He soon discovers his boss is missing. With just two weeks left in his community before he leaves, Raf realizes something strange in going on in his marginalized, ethnically diverse and beloved neighborhood.
Raf investigates and finds himself caught up in a bizarre conspiracy involving an American mining company called Lacebark and a Burmese Revolution. Both are after the same thing — the drug Glow.
Glow is made from a flower petal that grows in Burma – Myanmar. The company gave the petals to their workers to enhance their productivity. Chewing the flowers, the miners are able to work in darkness for longer hours, be more focused and don’t need to sleep.
Lacebark is struggling financially and decides to go into the business of illegal drug manufacturing. But the guy who figured out how to synthesize the Glow petals has slipped away to south London. So Lacebark has secretly taken over the community in hopes to flush out the Glow chemist. Their takeover includes the radio station.
Raf meets a Burmese-American girl named Cherish at a rave who only makes matters worse when he becomes smitten by the exotic beauty. He is soon in over his head. Raf realizes he wants to stay in the hood and reclaim the community from the evil corporation. But he may not survive south London if he stays.
Author Beauman does a good job with the protagonist. Raf is an unlikely yet loveable hero. He’s motivated to do what’s right and put things back in order. With good humor, he decides he wants to run the bad guys out of town. But sadly, the world is much crazier and meaner than he thought.
Glow is a conspiracy thriller with a sci-fi element. But the pleasure of the story is not what unfolds so much as what Raf is going to do about the situation. He’s just a regular guy. But, he is looking for ways to adjust his disorder and Glow might be the solution.
Raf loses his innocence when he realizes everyone has a personal agenda and they don’t care what happens to anyone as long as the outcome is in their favor. The conspiracy in the story is overly convoluted and I never really feared for Raf even when he puts himself in the middle of the lion’s den.
What I most enjoyed was the chemistry references, lessons and illustrations. Raf has a roommate who is always cooking up something to extract a chemical that they can ingest to alter their perception. Turns out to make Glow, it must first be fed to foxes – which are abundant in south London – and then extracted from their excrement.
I think Glow would be a more compelling read if Raf told the story himself. The third person narration was a distraction and often too expository. When characters can’t explain something, the unknown narrator does.
There are important themes that resonate in Glow. There are the corporations and revolutionaries involved with illegal drug trade for the revenue, plus both groups exploit the weak, marginalized and immigrants. But what I enjoyed most are the ideas about the chemical evolution of human beings.
Turns out we are complicated creatures emotionally and chemically. And it takes a lot more than popping an illegal substance to have a healthy glow.
