ASBOVILLE
Sixteen-year-old JB is served with an ASBO and sent to live with his uncle in a tiny caravan by the sea. Each and every day he must paint one hut on the beach. As the summer days drag by, JB's feelings of isolation grow. Only his tentative relationship with Sal offers any chance of rescue. But a storm is coming that threatens to shatter JB's hopes and destroy the relationship that could redeem him.
'Subject and setting imply a Loach-like bleakness, but this finely crafted and often lyrical debut novel offers far more than hoodie-hugging sympathy or sink-estate despair. JB, with his great but baffled expectations, shakes hands across time with Dickens's Pip' - The Independent
