Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this ambitious debut journeys into the inner world of a vulnerable teenager who is left traumatised by a toxic friendship
L
ucy Apps’s debut novel tells the story of 19-year-old Gloria, who is living in east London with her mum in the summer of 1999. Gloria has a learning disability and is past the age when the state might offer her support. Often she is happy enough “to stop outdoors where it is nice and busy, and watch things happen and be part of it”.
But sometimes people steal from her, or shout abuse. Then she has a “heavy feeling inside her” because she has no option except “to walk around the parks and streets on her own trying not to attract too much attention”. When she develops a friendship with Jack, she is happy because: “He has no one to talk to and she has no one to listen to, so they can fit with each other.”
Gloria merely wants to eat chips or drink a coke in a pub, but Jack often rants about the end of the world. “He is waiting the summer out, waiting the city out, counting down to zero.” For Jack, the attraction of Gloria is that he can do what he likes with her. He may not be obviously motivated by sex, but he certainly craves control.
