Apples - Softcover

Milward, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571232833 ISBN 13: 9780571232833

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2008

Synopsis

As a distraction from sleazy male admirers, spiteful classmates and her mother's cancer, Eve's eyes are opened to a multicolour life of one-night stands, drug-fuelled discos and cheap plonk. She barely has time to notice Adam. Adam, however, notices Eve. While contending with sexual frustration, a violent father and increasingly compulsive behaviour, is he too busy reading Razzle in the attic to make his move? Narrated alternately by Adam and Eve, alongside a cast of delinquents, perverts and butterflies, Apples is an exploration of the difficulties of growing up and of getting 'wasted as quick as you can'.

About this title

Review:

'A confident, no-holds-barred, and bizarrely optimistic story - a fairy tale with plenty of heart.' -- Sunday Business Post

'Dazzling ... I loved Apples ... If I were an adolesent, I'd read and re-read [it] until it fell apart.'
-- www.thebookbag.co.uk

'It's one of the best books I've ever read about being young, working-class and British.'
-- Irvine Welsh

'The moment I started reading I was hooked ... Milward writes with ferocious, infectious energy [and] sharp, black wit.' -- Mail on Sunday

'This exuberant debut will appeal to fans of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting; and has the advantage of being written by someone still under 25.' -- The Times

'Written with naive candour [and] ... with appealing freshness and humour.' -- Guardian

Its provocative subject matter is the least striking thing about the novel: what is fascinating about it is Milward. Already he possesses an iodiosyncratic style that many writers go whole careers without discovering: vehicle for a meticulous, alcopop-fuelled assembly of dramatic monologues with spurts of surrealism and few false notes....the narrative retains a resolute cheeriness. Life may be a bitch, but youth itself has everything to play for. -- The Times

Milward's depiction of life on the estate, and the complexity of his characters and their predicaments is funny, tragic and honest, giving a sympathetic and intelligent voice to Britain's often misrepresented underclass. Colourful, exciting and funny, the book is a coming-of-age novel full of an unnerving blackness that Adam, Eve and the rest of the characters in the fallen world have to overcome
--Leeds Guide Book of the Fortnight - Awarded Four Stars

Richard Milward - barely in his double digits and this boy can WRITE! Apples is our little joy of the month --the Guardian - Going Up

Richard Milward's no-holds-barred debut is the story of a boy nnamed Adam and a girl named Eve...alongside chapters told by Adam and Eve are esoteric interludes where the narrator is a butterfly or an unborn baby, and each time Milward acquits himself brilliantly...Apples is an electrifying book, as frightening as it is funny, full of words that will have you running to urbandictionary.com, before cunningly using them in your own everyday speech.
--The Times

Book Description:

Apples by Richard Milward is a shocking, tender and funny debut novel from a twenty-one year old, telling the story of housing estate teens Adam and Eve.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0571232833
• ISBN 13: 9780571232833
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208