The Smaller Sky by John Wain Review

Arthur Geary, a married father of two with a good job, leaves it all behind one day to go and live on Paddington Station in London. But why?

John Wain’s 1967 novel The Smaller Sky is a marvellous read. It was one of those rare books I picked up not expecting anything from and found myself reading half the book in one go, then finishing it off not long after! It’s a genuinely enthralling story written beautifully.

The opening scene is a seemingly simple one. An old acquaintance of Geary’s sees him on the platform one evening, not getting on any of the trains for some reason, and then finds out he’s living at the station hotel. But then we get deeper into the scene where we learn more about Geary’s strange predicament - that he refuses to leave the station for some reason - and his concerned friend sets off a chain reaction that escalates the situation from then on.

Wain does this by brilliantly introducing elements at the right time which begins the next set of actions in order to create new scenes of conflict when one ends. There are no wasted scenes, no faffing about - he gets on with the story and maintains a brisk pace throughout. As crass as it sounds, this is a story about a man having a mental health crisis that reads like a thriller.

And it’s interesting and sad to see how people viewed mental illness back in the 1960s, when it was taboo. Geary has to hide it outwardly with no idea of how to resolve it which leads to a very moving scene when his young son David visits him on the platform, a child who doesn’t understand what’s happening to his dad, and Geary has to pretend that everything’s alright even though he’s basically in the same boat as his boy.

While the story is effective in drawing the reader in to find out the mystery behind Geary’s odd behaviour, Geary makes the valid point to his concerned friend that they all accept far more arbitrary behaviour every day and that it’s only because nobody else lives on a train station that he’s worried at all. We see how society reacts to someone who chooses to live life differently, in a way that’s not accepted, even though, to Geary, it’s become the only way to make life tolerable.

As somebody who thankfully doesn’t suffer from panic attacks or mental illness, Wain’s description of Geary’s condition as drums only he can hear that grow in volume and intensity provided a visceral insight behind his drastic actions. When he reduces his world - creates a smaller sky - to that of the station, he finds peace; outside it, the drums reach a fever pitch once more.

Wain expands his story to show the effects of Geary’s actions on his family and friends, which leads to the development of some really exciting scenes later on. Like Geary’s confrontation with Blakeney, the psychiatrist, and the introduction of the wonderfully snakish Swarthmore, a TV presenter who sees Geary as a stepping stone to more fame.

The author avoids providing any easy answers to Geary’s plight. There’s an intimation of secret government work, mention of personal tragedy, and the murky depths of loneliness, but we never know exactly what causes Geary’s breakdown at this particular point - it might be all of those things culminating as one, and it might be something else. Mental illness is different for everyone and I think Wain made the right choice by keeping the cause behind it unclear but the experience of it very accessible.

The Smaller Sky by John Wain is a gem of a novel that isn’t widely known - I only heard about it myself from reading Susan Hill’s Howards End is On the Landing - but certainly deserves a wider readership. It’s as relevant now as then, with the focus on mental health as important as it always should have been, and an absolutely cracking read to boot. Couldn’t recommend this one more.