This month’s guest on BookClub is Polly Courtney, author of
the remarkable novel, Feral Youth, written in response to the riots that broke out across Britain's cities in the summer of 2011.
Feral Youth is the story of Alesha – a fifteen year old from Peckham in South London, living
under the radar, dodging social services, gang violence and her alcoholic
mother. It's the story of why so many young British kids took the streets, of why they were so angry.
Here she talks to Catriona Troth about the origins of the book, the young people who helped to inspire her, and how the book has been received.
Feral Youth is the story of Alesha – a fifteen year old from Peckham in South London, living under the radar, dodging social services, gang violence and her alcoholic mother. It's the story of why so many young British kids took the streets, of why they were so angry.
Here she talks to Catriona Troth about the origins of the book, the young people who helped to inspire her, and how the book has been received.
Polly, where were you
when the riots broke out in August 2011?
Did you have direct experience of them or like most of us, were you
watching them unfold on your television screens?
I was at home in west London, glued to my Twitter feed,
smelling the burning police cars in Ealing. I wanted to head into town and see
it first-hand but things seemed to be moving quite quickly and I knew I’d be
too late to catch the action, so I headed into town the next day. It was
devastating; charity shops and family stores had been reduced to burnt-out
shells.
When did you first
start to think, there is a side to this story that no one is thinking about?
I watched and read the news, avidly, in the days and weeks
that followed the riots. Everyone was talking about harsh punishments and
blame, with many people focusing on the story of Mark Duggan, whose death at
the hands of the police had initiated the protest that sparked the riots… but
it felt as though nobody was asking why.
WHY did so many young people take to the streets across the country? I don’t
mean the looters, who inevitably took advantage of the mayhem in order to get
their hands on free stuff; I mean the people who stood in the street, brazenly
facing a line of police, chucking things, burning things, yelling obscenities. Why were they so angry? And even if many
of them were just after a new pair of
trainers, why were they willing to break
the law and go to such lengths to get it? It felt as though there was something
deeply wrong with society and nobody was talking about the real problems.
Tell us about the
research you did before you began writing the novel. Did you already have any contact with groups
like Kids’ Company, or was this an entirely new world for you?
When the riots broke out, I was already looking into
becoming a mentor for a young person at Kids Company. I had heard a lot about
the support they give vulnerable children and I’d read Camila Batmanghelidjh’s
heart-breaking book, Shattered Lives (recommended reading for anyone working with or
bringing up children), but the training and matching process takes time, so it
was only later when I actually started mentoring. One of the key pieces of
research I undertook was going into schools and youth groups and small
charities, talking and workshopping with young people about the way they lived
their lives, their frustrations and their attitudes. I learned so much more
than I’d bargained for – not just about the kids but about myself too. I was
horrified to realise that I’d gone in with some preconceptions of my own,
presumably borne out of media stereotypes and spin. I can’t say enough how
grateful I am to the teenagers who helped me to shape Alesha’s view of the
world.
What you found about
the lives of these young people is profoundly shocking. To me, Alesha seemed
closer to some of Dickens’ characters (like Tom the crossing sweeper in Bleak
House) than anything I would expect to encounter in 21st Century
London. But this is all grounded in
reality, isn’t it? What was your reaction to what you discovered?
I was horrified at what I discovered. Politicians talk as
though we are ‘one big community’, an empowered nation with a highly functioning
society, but we’re not. There are people who fall through the gaps and some of
them have no safety net – or if they do, they often don’t know where to find
it. Homelessness is a massive problem, but not in the way most people think.
It’s not all about ex-military servicemen on the streets around Waterloo
(although that is a huge problem too); it’s about kids who sofa-surf, existing
below the radar, living one day to the next with nothing more than the £2 in
their pocket and nobody looking out for them. Some sleep on night buses to keep
warm. I couldn’t believe the problem was so profound and so widespread.
You originally came
into writing from the world of investment banking – which is about as far from
the Alesha’s world as you can get. What
do you think now of a city that can spawn two such very different modes of
existence? And what do you think we need to do to change things for Alesha?
I lived a grotesquely lavish life in the City. I got cabs
everywhere, I ate expensive meals and I enjoyed all sorts of ‘perks’ from my
employer. We lived in a ‘bubble’; the square mile was insulated from the rest
of the world by money and we really didn’t have a clue how ordinary people
lived – let alone those living in poverty. I’ve only realised the extent of the
problem at the other end of the wealth spectrum in the last few years, so I
can’t tell whether the wealth divide has widened, but it certainly feels as
though most policies being put through by the coalition favour the already-wealthy
and make life very hard for those at the bottom. I don’t think it’s a
party-political issue, either. It’s just that the wealthy can speak up for
themselves and therefore tend to control the agenda. The poor and vulnerable
typically don’t have a voice in the mainstream media or society, so they are
natural victims. Something I wanted to do with Feral Youth was to give the
Aleshas of the world a voice.
I believe your agent
didn’t take very kindly to your idea for a new novel. Can you tell us about how [he/she] reacted
when you first suggested it?
I believe my agent’s words were: “I don’t think it’s got
commercial potential. I wouldn’t be able to sell it [to a publisher]. But I
have a feeling you’re going to write it anyway.”
She was right; I wrote it regardless. I’m so pleased I did.
Were you still with
Harper Collins at this stage, or had you already left your publisher?
I’d walked out a few months before, but I was already a long
way into planning the novel that would become Feral Youth. The riots happened around the time I left
HarperCollins, so I guess you could say I was feeling reckless… or maybe I was
just desperate to do things on my own terms
.
Alesha’s voice in
Feral Youth is incredibly strong, and it feels utterly authentic. But it’s quite unlike yours and quite unlike
the voice in any of your previous novels.
How did you achieve that and how difficult was it to sustain?
For real, blud! Yes, it took a while to get into Alesha’s head
and learn her voice and I couldn’t have done it without a bunch of south London
teenagers, who had a good laugh at my expense. It wasn’t just her language I
wanted to get right though; it was her attitude and all the little things:
where she hung out, what she thought of politicians, teachers, social workers…
what made her smile, occasionally.
How big a risk do you
think it was to take on a character so far from your own experience? And what
would you say now to a novelist contemplating taking a similar leap?
They say you should ‘write what you know’. Well, I guess I broke
that rule, but as soon as I knew there were real-life Aleshas out there, I was
desperate to share her story with the world. I wanted people to care. I’m not
sure I’m qualified to advise other writers, but I would say that the most
important thing you can do is to write what you care about, even if it requires
some research to get it right. Authenticity is critical.
How has Feral Youth
been received so far? Are you pleased
with how things have gone?
I’ve been humbled. I was truly expecting a backlash, or
rather, multiple backlashes: people telling me I had no right to write Alesha’s
story, people saying I’d got it wrong, people disagreeing with the political
implications. In fact, I’ve seen very little of that. The most emotional I’ve
felt in a long time was a week ago, when I received a message (via a charity)
from a 15-year-old girl from a not dissimilar situation from Alesha, telling me
that the book had left her in tears and that it was the first book she’d read
cover-to-cover.
And no regrets at
your decision to go indie?
Not one. I’m back in control and it has never felt better.
The audiobook has just come out and my next little project is Feral Youth the movie…
