We like to think that we have no time for heroes - have no need of them, perhaps - but in this accomplished, unsettling novel Barry Unsworth forces us to reconsider the nature both of heroism and of hero-worship. He does so (naturally) by means of an anti-hero: Charles Cleasby, the ultimate weird old cove, who spends his days re-enacting the great sea battles of Horatio Nelson in the darkness of his Victorian basement house. Charles is writing a book about Nelson, but is having difficulty with the chapter on Naples - he can't find a way to write it without revealing his hero's inglorious role in the slaughter of the city's republican militia following the disastrous uprising of 1799. Unsworth has done his homework, and the historical parts of the book ring with the sounds, sights and smells of naval warfare, brilliantly recreated; but Losing Nelson is a study, not of battles past, but of obsessions dangerously present, and to read it is to descend, cautiously, one foot at a time, into a dark and airless place. It's a journey well worth making.
