Twist of fate sparks a fight for life
SARA LAWRENCE ENGLAND IS MINE (serpent’s Tail £16.99, 366pp)
I WAS gripped by this original story about online radicalisation, wounded masculinity, disaffected youth and a desperate search for identity.
David hates sixth form, where he has no friends, and refuses to listen to his Iranian exile mother’s advice about trying to get into university.
He doesn’t want the debt and he doesn’t think he’ll like the people.
David’s hero is a musician who is cancelled after calling Muslims homophobic, and David is confused and conflicted about the response of his right-on friends.
The same age and living in the same London borough, Hassan feels he must separate himself from his childhood friends as they drift deeper into drugs and delinquency.
Determined to get a place at university, Hassan throws himself into volunteering for community groups connected to his local mosque.
As both David and Hassan struggle to find a comfortable place for themselves among their peers, their fates become inextricably linked as they hurtle towards disaster. Brilliant.
MANNY AND THE BABY by Varaidzo (scribe £16.99, 272pp)
WHEN his father dies, Itai leaves London and moves to the flat in Bath he never knew existed until he inherited it. There he discovers a box of old cassette tapes, with the name Rita on the side.
It’s 2012, but these tapes describe London in 1936, and the lives of two sisters, Manny and Rita. Itai has no idea who Rita was, nor why his father recorded her life story.
The tapes seem like proof his father kept secrets from him and he isn’t sure he’s ready for any answers they might contain.
The descriptions of smoky Soho jazz clubs are vivid and enticing and the struggles of black people then, contrasted with now, are thoughtprovoking and important.
At the same time as Itai is learning about Rita, Manny and his father, he is building a friendship with an ambitious young athlete. It’s great on relationships of all kinds, grief, and shared history.
SOME STRANGE MUSIC DRAWS ME IN by Griffin Hansbury (Daunt Books £9.99, 376pp)
BEFORE she came across her first transsexual in 1984, smalltown 13-year-old Melanie could never have imagined someone like that existed. But once she’d seen her, and the idea of such a person took hold, she thought of little else. Melanie’s mother, schoolfriends and their families are horrified by Sylvia’s arrival in their old-fashioned, working-class community. This upsets Melanie, who is inexorably drawn to Sylvia and away from them.
Narrating this compelling, often heart- breaking, coming-of-age tale from a 2019 vantage point is Max, formerly Melanie. Max has been suspended from his job and is spending the summer clearing out his late mother’s house, where his anger at the world was formed.
He’s also trying to reconnect with his Right-wing sister. Beautifully written and I loved the alternating perspectives of the pre/post transition dual timeline. Wonderful.