YOUNG ADULT FICTION:WE HEAR frequently these days that we are living in a "golden age" of young adult fiction and though the claim may be slightly exaggerated there is no doubt that the best of the genre is currently attaining remarkably high standards. This development is, in part at least, a consequence of the "crossover" phenomenon whereby various writers now no longer see themselves as catering for an exclusively adolescent readership, choosing instead to deal with themes and to opt for modes of expression which elevate their work into increasingly ambitious and challenging areas.
Viewed from a certain perspective, this literary shift may be seen as merely mirroring societal shifts in attitudes towards the ever-
changing and slippery boundaries separating child, adolescent and adult. It also, however, raises perplexing questions about appropriateness of content and accessibility of style; ambition and challenge come at a price – and not just for the younger reader.
In the case of a book such as Mal Peet's Life: An Exploded Diagram(Walker, £7.99) it is a price well worth paying by any reader aged from about 14 upwards. Set mainly in the rural Norfolk of the 1960s and against a background of the threatening international situation known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the novel focuses on the childhood and adolescence of working-class Clem and on his evolving relationship with Frankie, the daughter of a local landowner who provides Clem's family with their livelihood. But Clem's first-person narrative does not limit itself to his account of the young couple's romantic and sexual yearnings, engaging though these are.
Rather, they are made to become merely part of the boy’s family’s history, going back about two generations and allowing for the introduction of some beautifully observed relatives. The most entertaining of these is his maternal grandmother, Win, given to an idiosyncratic and earthy turn of phrase: when she learns that Clem has passed his 11-plus examination she dismissively comments, “He’ll start to think his shit dunt stink”. Sometimes hilariously comic, sometimes desperately sad, this totally engrossing novel exhibits ambition and confronts challenge to equally telling effect.
Although the Irish contribution to young adult fiction has been patchy and not, overall, particularly distinguished, there need be few reservations about Mark O'Sullivan's six novels published between 1994 and 1999. Now, after some 12 years, he makes a welcome return to the genre with My Dad Is Ten Years Old(Penguin, £6.99). Set in contemporary rural Tipperary, the novel examines the devastating effect on a family of a father's tragic accident, as perceived through the eyes of his teenage daughter, Eala.
“We’re the ghosts of the family who used to live here before the accident,” she comments early on and as the plot unravels it becomes clear that this accident, dreadful as it is in itself, is really the pivot for what turns out to be a poignant, subtle and often searing study of a family on the verge of total disintegration. Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends and lovers: all of them, in all their complexities and contradictions, are stunningly caught as their destinies interweave in a multi-textured, richly patterned – and in many senses very adult – novel.
A further Irish contribution to young adult reading comes in the form of Mary Finn's The Horse Girl(Walker, £6.99). Here, the author's ambition is to be seen in her re-creation of 18th-century English village life; the challenge is to do this in such a way that her choice of place and period convincingly acts as backcloth for her narrative and her characters, in addition to providing at least some points of empathetic contact for today's readers. These demands are met admirably in an absorbing novel of about 400 pages.
At its centre are a local boy called Thomas and an altogether more exotic young woman called (sometimes) Ling, a new arrival in his Lincolnshire village. Ling’s adored horse, Belladonna, has just been stolen and the young people’s determination to find her takes them into the presence of none other than George Stubbs, anatomist and celebrated painter of equine subjects, currently resident in the village. It also takes them into their own gradually deepening relationship: plenty of empathetic “points of contact” here! Blending the factual and the fictional is always a tricky business but here, such is the authenticity of atmospheric detail, it works to impressive effect.
From the Lincolnshire of the past we move, in Bali Rai's Killing Honour(Corgi, £6.99), to the Leicester of the present, the setting for a narrative which unflinchingly portrays the effects on a British Asian family of a daughter's mysterious disappearance. As in some of his earlier novels, Rai excels in emphasising the conflict between tradition and modernity in his chosen communities, with young and old being equally caught up in painful family dissensions. Beyond the home, the environment seems typified by racism, racketeering, cocaine snorting, adulterous sex and very ugly violence. "Not suitable for younger readers," advises a note on the book's back cover: is this, then, the ultimate "crossover", a "young adult" novel for adults only?
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books and reading
