We Begin Our Ascent, by John Mango Reed

Staff review by Chris Saliba

A novel about the peculiar side effects of ambition.

We Begin Our Ascent’s narrator, Sol, is a competitor in the Tour de France. He rides as part of a peloton – a team of riders that alternate positions to maximise their performance. His wife, Liz, is a research biologist. Both are very competitive; Liz perhaps more so. When the team’s sinister coach, Rafael, suggests to Sol that he start doping to improve his performance, he is horrified, but soon succumbs. As difficulties arise with the drug’s supply chain, Liz readily agrees to help. Can their relationship survive such elaborate deception and its attendent risks?

Joe Mungo Reed’s debut novel about the peculiar side effects of ambition is tautly written and skilfully plotted. The many scenes involving racing, manoeuvring as part of a peloton and the physical sensations of high-performance riding are compelling. The novel’s portrait of the manipulative and slimey coach Raphael is so well done it makes the skin crawl while the dithering, vacillating, hand-wringing Sol and his go-getter wife Liz are the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of the cycling world. A cautionary, but also existential tale about the emptiness often found at the centre of our desires.

We Begin Our Ascent, by John Mango Reed. Published by HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780008298166  RRP: $27.99

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