PRIMROSE HILL (Karen and Michael Braziller Books) - Softcover

Falconer, Helen

3.13

84 ratings by Goodreads

9780892552948: PRIMROSE HILL (Karen and Michael Braziller Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0892552948 ISBN 13: 9780892552948

Publisher: Persea, 2003

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Now in paperback, the "firecracker debut" (Kirkus) about London teenagers contemplating murder. After his mother takes another beating from her drug-dealing boyfriend, Danny decides to do something about it--commit murder. Should his best friend Si get involved? Seen through Si's eyes, this moral dilemma and ultimate test of friendship comes alive--fraught, exhilarating, shocking

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

To murder or not to murder, Si worries to himself through a long, stiflingly hot summer on Primrose Hill, North London. Si is only seventeen, but his best friend, Danny, is determined to kill his stepfather, a junkie and a heroine dealer, who has beaten up Danny's junkie mother once too often. What are best friends for if not to offer their full support to any plans afoot? Si's paranoia grows to fever pitch as Danny's plans take haphazard and solid form. A beautiful young rich girl's apparent obsession with him doesn't help, as she seems to have major psychological problems of her own, which she expresses by cutting her arms and offering herself sexually to Si, only to withdraw the offer seconds later. This pain-ridden trio spend what should have been a summer of innocent pleasures alongside their other friends on Primrose Hill--smoking pot and getting drunk on cider--worrying about the logistics of a perfect murder. In the end, of course, events go badly awry and life only slowly returns to some kind of order. Si's lugubrious, comical narration creates a tragi-comic farce out of the surreal developments, and gently takes him through a searing rite of passage in which he feels he is always two steps behind. This is Helen Falconer's first novel; she is adept at the idiom of a seventeen year-old North Londoner and vividly evokes his gritty Primrose Hill environment--where she herself grew up. The only element her engaging novel lacks is a tragic undertone for such a grim loss of innocence.--Emily Ormond

About the Author:

Helen Falconer, a native Londoner, has been a journalist at several major newspaper in England. She now lives in rural Ireland.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.