This is the story of three 18-year-old kids and their experience of teenage life in and around Northampton, a middle-sized town in England. The narrative runs from school-leaving exams in May and June, through vacation work in July, to exam results in August and University acceptances in September. The summer solstice of the title is the cusp of the fast-moving plot: it's the point of transition when the three young friends see their lives pulling apart and heading off in different directions. Lard is big, brave and opinionated, while his best friend Speck is not. Jude is Speck's girlfriend. She may be pregnant. She is under pressure from her parents and over-achieving sister to do especially well in her exams. And because she is mixed up with the arts and drama students, she indulges in drugs to cope with all the stress. This causes all three friends to struggle against the local drug dealers, low-lifes and petty gangs who are threatening to drag Jude into a downward spiral of addiction, debt and porn. Lard and Speck turn out to be heroes as well as anti-heroes, highly-intelligent as well as school delinquents, efficient employees as well as saboteurs, super-cool as well as geeks, and despairing as well as hopeful about their uncertain futures.
ISBN 978-1-84045-113-X |
|
|