Imagine yourself: perfectly healthy, living a regular life. Perhaps moving without a specific direction, not chasing everything you’re truly passionate about. But still, a normal, compact life, with hobbies, work, dreams, people, action, excitement. Then, all of a sudden, life as you know it is turned around. You face something you never thought you would: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), a chronic fatigue disease, with no cure or treatment, and with it, depression – taking you out of your bustling, music-filled life in Glasgow, to a psychiatric hospital where you work on getting better. 

This is where Nobody’s Empire opens, a semi-autobiographical novel written by the lead singer and songwriter of the Glaswegian band, Belle and Sebastian. In this slow, gentle, and meaningful coming of age tale, taking place between Scotland and California, we follow the protagonist Stephen as he comes to terms with his reality, braves the world, gets to know himself again, and goes after his dreams in a way he never did when he was healthy.

The narrative form of the novel is never clarified to be a journal, but it very much reads like one. Recurring thoughts in Stephen’s psyche are regularly repeated throughout the text. The language is not entirely polished, occasionally lacking consistency in choice of tenses, and some details are not revealed when you need them to be as a reader. While the novel could have benefitted from a touch more of clarity and continuity, these inconsistencies contribute to the feeling that you are truly reading someone’s journal. Someone who writes beautifully, despite using easy, everyday language, indisputably the pen of a lyricist. 

At one point, Stephen writes, “I really appreciate mornings now. I used to run from the clarity of the day, now I bask in it.”¹ Human feelings shift so quickly and completely that we almost forget how we used to be. I love documenting these small evolutions, so I can remember how my days, how my life, use to feel. The novel reminds me of why I love keeping a journal. As Joan Didion writes about keeping a notebook: "remember what it was to be me: that is always the point."² That is exactly what Stephen is doing.

Murdoch writes an incredibly raw and human, as well as eloquent, tale of illness and life. Stephen, the eternal optimist, has days ranging from bright-spirited and sanguine, ready to take on anything, to more melancholic, harder days. The presence of such moments makes the novel more candid and vulnerable, while making the reader truly root for Stephen. Part of the novel takes place in California, due to the impulse of Stephen and his flatmate Richard to literally chase the sun. The ease and serenity of the California sun provides the perfect backdrop for Stephen’s tale, encouraged by his three main motivators in life: God, music, and community.

Stephen’s journey with religion is refreshingly warm, honest, and non-linear. Religion is revealed to him at a moment of despair, leading him to experiment with Christianity and Buddhism. He speaks to different religious representatives, joins meditation groups, and takes it all in with an open mind. The first time he goes to church is a favourite scene of mine: he keeps bracing himself to hear something that would offend him, but everything that is said sounds “pretty reasonable.”³ He has a genuine, non-vindictive approach to prayer that reads very gentle and human. This nontraditional attitude towards religion is entirely welcome and hopeful.  

Stephen’s palpable love of music is a living force of its own, electrifying the entirety of the novel. There are many tidbits of trivia about music-making and real bands scattered throughout the novel from Stephen. Music had already been a significant part of his life before his illness, as he worked as a DJ and roadie. What changes, and where the novel begins, is his discovery that he himself can create music and write songs. This discovery unfolds in a stark depiction of the creative process.

Stephen, encouraged by his belief that God and creativity are similar reminders that he is a part of something greater, is committed to teaching himself how to play the guitar, guessing at the chords as he goes, shocking the people around him. In contrast to people who strive to master instruments in order to play songs they love that already exist, Stephen is after something different: “tools … bricks and mortar for songs.”⁴ He is told by nearly everyone he encounters –random people he meets in hostels, real artists, even a psychic that his friend’s girlfriend goes to–that this is what he should be pursuing. It’s a truly special gift. 

Community, too, is deeply important to Stephen. He seeks and often finds it, appreciating the psychiatric hospital or church groups he attends, because they bring him together with others. He starts a group of ME patients, believing that sharing the burden makes illness a little easier. He tries all kinds of helpers: a doctor, a therapist, a Christian healer.  He meets and befriends people, all incredibly likeable and luminous, with a remarkable ease throughout the novel. As I knew the novel was mostly autobiographical and written by an artist, I kept expecting the moment when he would meet his future bandmates, people who would remain from their entrance until the end of the story. Instead, people flow in and out of the novel and his life in a nomadic continuity. 

The same is true for the women that pass through the novel. Stephen spends hours working on a beautiful tape for a violinist woman he encounters once, using the titles of his favourite violin tracks to spell out his address. He says the tape is, “all that I can offer as a match for her beauty and life.”⁵ But she doesn't linger. He meets and nearly falls in love with another woman that feels like his soulmate in so many ways, with whom “the talk is rare and funny” but she too leaves the novel.⁶ Rather than a story of romance or of a band coming together, the novel is entirely about Stephen–finding comfort and contentment in his slow and steady, but incredibly spirited, colourful, and creative life, despite his illness that occasionally weighs him down.

While people come in and out of his life, the love he shares with his two best friends, Richard and Carrie, remains unchanged. He meets and loves many people, but always comes back to them. At one point he thinks, “What have I got on my side? I’ve got Carrie and Richard. I’ve got the music.”⁷ That is a pretty good list, if I do say so myself. 

Carrie tells him, “when you do other people’s stuff, you get ill,” encouraging him to pursue music.⁸ Music is his stuff. It’s a great message to anyone reading; follow what speaks to your soul. Don’t waste your youthful energy on what isn’t your stuff. A perfect read for young people trying to find their way in life, the novel makes you pause and embrace life. It encourages you to follow happy impulses and trust in the good of the world and others. To trust your passions, instincts, and community, to never give up on healing and getting better, and to give all your love to the world... It encourages you to follow the sun, literally and metaphorically, towards a warmer place.