The Dead of Summer, Camilla Way
Rating: 
Publisher: Harper Collins
Price: £6.99
Written from the viewpoint of a neglected adolescent, Way’s blunt use of description is striking. Think Anita and Me by Meera Syal, but much less hopeful. Anita’s mother dies of a “well kept secret” and her reaction is vividly realistic; “they found me kneeling, screaming still, trying to shake her awake.” Astoundingly upfront about the complex dejection and melancholy of each character, it is certainly not an idealistic story, set in the gloomy boatyards and scrap heaps of South London in 1986.
Way has an original voice, but is far too grim and vacant. Anita recounts a tragic childhood, full of murder and mystery among the abandoned chalk and sand mines of Greenwich. Way reports this via police interviews in the future, with constant flashbacks to keep the reader speculating.
Despite Anita’s blatant despondency, the story is compelling. Way offers a new perspective on her protagonist, a quiet girl who avoids relationships at all costs until she meets the rebellious Kyle.
I am not convinced that this was ‘a modern classic in the making’. Its linguistic simplicity belies the bleak nature of its content. Interesting, if not exactly uplifting.
