Hard shoulder - Jackie Bell

Here are strong, young fictions that deal with the spectrum of life across the city of Birmingham, putting it firmly on the literary map. 'Earnest, vigorous, compelling urban fictions which resituate timeless themes by exploring them in the wrap of our own era. Here we meet father and daughter, brother and sister, women frineds, Asian, Black and White, dreamers and runners, inshort, a panoply of the young who, materially poor, are rich in passion, in action and in language. English is reinvigorated in these recreations of lives.' Joan Michelson.