The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong
Azzy Williams is ready. Ready to smoke, pop pills, drink wine and ready to fight. But most of all, he's ready to do anything for his friends, his gang, his young team. Round here, in the schemes of the forgotten industrial heartland of Scotland, your mates, your young team - they're everything. Azzy Williams is fourteen; a rising star, this is his life and he loves it. Azzy Williams is seventeen; he's out of control. Azzy Williams is twenty-one; he'd like to leave it all behind. But a way out isn't easy to find . . . Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, The Young Team is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today.
Raw and lyrical. . written in a voice that recalls Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner – dialect that fizzes off the page. * Observer *
The Young Team is a book full of guts, power, humour and humanity. This is a community not often seen in literature, depicted by a talented writer who intimately knows that world and the truth of this is seared in every sentence. -- Kerry Hudson, author of Lowborn
Graeme Armstrong’s debut novel is an instant Scottish classic * The Skinny *
Vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip -- Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Phenomenal. It’s been ages since I read a book so funny, visceral, or powerful. -- David Whitehouse, author of Bed and The Long Forgotten
It is Trainspotting meets Clockwork Orange in this depiction of gang life in North Lanarkshire . . . it gives us a voice from a place — geographically and socio-economically — we don’t often hear from, and that’s valuable . . . it also offers us growth and change, even optimism for the future, in Azzy’s story. -- John Self * The Times *
[A] gripping debut novel . . . [Armstrong] is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction -- Mike Wade * The Times *
Armstrong’s hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting for a new generation, as the author draws on his own experiences to tell the coming of age of a young gang member in Airdrie. -- Sarah Hughes * Independent *
The Young Team is a book full of guts, power, humour and humanity. This is a community not often seen in literature, depicted by a talented writer who intimately knows that world and the truth of this is seared in every sentence. -- Kerry Hudson, author of Lowborn
Graeme Armstrong’s debut novel is an instant Scottish classic * The Skinny *
Vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip -- Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Phenomenal. It’s been ages since I read a book so funny, visceral, or powerful. -- David Whitehouse, author of Bed and The Long Forgotten
It is Trainspotting meets Clockwork Orange in this depiction of gang life in North Lanarkshire . . . it gives us a voice from a place — geographically and socio-economically — we don’t often hear from, and that’s valuable . . . it also offers us growth and change, even optimism for the future, in Azzy’s story. -- John Self * The Times *
[A] gripping debut novel . . . [Armstrong] is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction -- Mike Wade * The Times *
Armstrong’s hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting for a new generation, as the author draws on his own experiences to tell the coming of age of a young gang member in Airdrie. -- Sarah Hughes * Independent *
Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire’s gang culture. He was inspired to study English Literature following his reading of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting at just sixteen. Alongside overcoming his own struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he defied expectation to read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where, after graduating with honours, he returned to study a Masters’ in Creative Writing. His debut novel, The Young Team is inspired by his experiences.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781529017328 |
| ISBN 10 | 1529017327 |
| Title | The Young Team |
| Author | Graeme Armstrong |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Pan Macmillan |
| Year published | 2020-03-05 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |