Book review: The Escape Artist, by Matt Seaton

Anna often notes that I have quite a lot in common with certain domestic animals, particularly cats and dogs.  In fact, one of our favourite sayings is that “I need walking”, just like any healthy, active dog does.  One day without some sort of physical activity and I start to get grumpy.  Two days and I am visibly twitching.  Three days and I am climbing up the walls.

One of my brother-in-law’s dogs

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An affair with cycling

I have always needed that physical “fix”.  From when I was at school and university through into my first couple of jobs, I kept up competitive swimming but I also cycled at weekends.

When I moved to my third proper job I gave cycling a fair crack of the whip before I gravitated back to “land training” for sprint swimming, which ultimately became weight training, for, well, getting stronger.

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Books about cycling vs. books about cyclists

In my very brief cycling phase, I read a few books on cycling and a few books by or about cyclists.  Books about cycling tended to be quite repetitive.  Cycling for long slow rides builds endurance and not much else makes any difference.

Books by or about cyclists, on the other hand, tend to be a bit racier, if you’ll excuse the pun.  I read and enjoyed the exposé, Rough Ride, by Paul Kimmage on drugs in cycling back in 1990, the biography of the wild-child hill-climbing prodigy Marco Pantani, the remarkable autobiography of Lance Armstrong and his victory over a malignant cancer, and the tale of the cycling-obsessed chess grandmaster, Tim Krabbé, who just wanted to ride in the Tour de France.

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The Escape Artist, by Matt Seaton

The Escape Artist (UK affiliate link, US affiliate link) is one of the best books by (and about) a cyclist that I have read.  Its appeal reaches beyond the cycling world (like Lance’s autobiography) in that it deals with love and loss, the realities of living a normal life that competitive sport has to fit around and how we respond to getting older and picking up responsibilities along the way.

Ultimately, The Escape Artist asks whether we can keep our competitive spirit alive in the face of serious adversity.  Will we stand firm and keep our spirit firm or will we allow life to beat it out of us and turn us into a carbon copy of everyone else, time-keeping in cubicles by day and slouching in front of the goggle-box at night?

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OK, so what’s it really about?

The Escape Artist tells the story of one man’s introduction into amateur road racing in the UK, which is actually quite a small world, given that it was pretty much bludgeoned into the ground at birth by the authorities, who resisted the ability of cyclists to race on the open roads.

Our hero starts by using a bike for transport, easy enough in Cambridge.  But he soon finds himself sucked into doing charity bike rides, riding miles for sponsorship.  Then the miles become miles for their own sake and he finds himself on a slippery slope.  He buys a road bike and joins a club.

In painstaking detail, you see through his eyes the long, hard training rides, the brutally steep hills and the swooping descents.  You go to the races with him and smell the embrocation.  You wrangle with him over the issue of shaving his legs so other cyclists will take him seriously.

In time, he buys more bicycles and spends more than is sensible.  He crashes and gets road rash.  He discovers modern technology in the turbo trainer and the heart rate monitor but ultimately finds that being out on the road putting the hammer down gets him the best results.  He experiences the discomfort of having a passion that his other half doesn’t understand, let alone share.

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It’s not about the bike (thanks, Lance)

But in the end, to coin a phrase, it’s not about the bike.  And as the proverb goes, Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht (man plans, God laughs).  We all have our plans for life but things never turn out the way we want them to.  Just as the cycling reaches its peak, our hero has to face life events that most of us would struggle to bear.

And this is the pinnacle of the book: the way he gently walks us through this wasteland of desolate places, showing us what he did and why.  We see where he fell off and where he got up again.  We meet him at the end, looking back.  We imagine the grit that it would have taken to get to the same point, we see the spirit that he has and we wish him all the best for the future.

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Why should I read it again?  I’m not a cyclist…

In short, it’s a great book that you don’t have to be a cyclist to enjoy.  It purports to be about cycling but it’s not really about the bike.  It’s less about cycling and more about the drive to be physical, the need to express that spirit and to compete against other people, and the struggle to reconcile those needs with the pressures of life and death in the modern world.

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