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Gemma June Howell
When we first meet Girlo, she’s lying in the gutter – well, a police cell, after a particularly messy night out. It’s only over the course of Gemma June Howell’s debut novel, The Crazy Truth, that she learns to look at the stars. The references to Spam and Etch-a-Sketch help to create the historical context, but The Crazy Truth isn’t the fond, sentimentalised reminiscence of a Facebook nostalgia account – rather, a warts‘n’all, coming-of-age tale encompassing drink, drugs, tough love verging on neglect, and lost (or stolen) innocence.
The fractured narrative leaps about in time, augmenting the book’s manic energy, while Howell’s language is vibrant, awash with all manner of bodily fluids and visceral imagery. Take, for instance, the description of the miracle of childbirth: “The baby flopped out like raw sausage, slimy and extra-terrestrial, crying as she sucked up the cold shock of life.”
Ignore the heavy-handed author’s note (which unnecessarily seeks to frame the novel in academic terms) and instead inhale the pungent prose unfiltered. The Crazy Truth is a story of nature and nurture, pressure and resistance, entrapment and escape – of a young woman’s struggle to fight her way out of toxicity with words.
The Crazy Truth, Gemma June Howell (Seren)
Price: £9.99. Info: here
words BEN WOOLHEAD