Asboville
Danny Rhodes Maia, 214pp, £8.99
ISBN 1904559220
When 16-year-old JB is served with an Asbo, his mother sends him to live with his uncle in a tiny caravan by the sea for the summer. Tasked with painting huts on the beach, he is frustrated and lonely, and longs to be back home with his friends. The only people he has regular contact with are
his distant, enigmatic uncle and a well-meaning but ineffectual social worker. His tentative friendship with a girl named Sal offers a glimmer of hope, but events soon threaten to destroy the relationship that could redeem him.
Writers who attempt to "get into the heads" of socially disadvantaged teenagers often sound utterly contrived, but Danny Rhodes's spare prose is convincing. He has evidently drawn a lot from first-hand observation: he is an English teacher at a secondary school in Kent. His characters are complex creatures, and he tackles controversial issues without preaching. There are no easy answers. JB is neither innocent nor entirely to blame for the trouble he gets into – both the victim of a failing system and a free agent who makes his own choices. As in real life, some feelings and decisions can be made sense of, but others cannot.
Rhodes asks important questions about social justice, but also tells a compellingly human story. An impressive debut.
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