Apples by Richard Milward
It’s both exciting and depressing to read an excellent debut novel by some twenty-one year old punk. It is outright distressing, though, that someone so young should demonstrate such an insider’s acquaintance with the seamy world the book depicts.
On the cover of my edition, Irvine Welsh compares the book to Less than Zero, and that’s apt–perhaps if you splice it with Welsh’s own Trainspotting and the controversial movie Kids. The novel is written from the perspective of a handful of kids in low-middle class Britain where the same old decisions and insecurities that have always plagued adolescence have to occur in a violent and drug infused sprawl. Our hero is somewhat pathetic obsessive/compulsive Adam, who has an irresistable fancy–stoked at a distance–for the pill-popping hottie, Eve. His attraction to Eve teases him out of his abusive home and into her chaotic world for which he is singularly unprepared. Though she fakes it well, Eve, of course–being only fifteen–isn’t ready for it either. In fact, if there is an underlying theme of the book, it might be that no one–including the snake Gaz–is ready for this garden. (Oh yeah: the “apples” are drugs. Just to complete the symbolism. In actuality, this symbolism is not overplayed. In fact, densely, it was a while before I got it.)
Though Apples is a blast to read–not least because of Milward’s ability to drop into slang driven voices and disordered adolescent minds–it is pretty painful. You’ve got overdoses, broken faces, rapes and infanticides, and the first-person narrative doesn’t allow any distance from any of it. The narrative approach also doesn’t let the reader hate any of the characters–except perhaps the snake. You can regret their decisions or lament their innocence, you can cringe at the way their naivete permits a flood of heartbreak and pain, but their sins are understandable for all that. Despite its rough edges, the book brims with heart.
We’ll be hearing a lot more for Richard Milward, assuming he doesn’t live anything like the life of his characters. He’s convinced me that a 21 year old can write a splendid novel with wisdom and perspective, and that’s no small feat.