High Pavement Blues

A novel of self-discovery. The Big Fellow walked out two years ago, 'like an unexpected death', leaving Kevin and his mother 'to wonder why we'd come second-best to his music.' She has coped for two years but is now unable to renew her market stall licence without his signature. Alfie Cox, the next stall-holder, harasses Kevin every Saturday. Missing his dad, worried about his mum, made miserable by Alfie, Kevin gives us his own account of events and feelings. He falls in love with a girl from a secure middle-class family - (Karen on the cover, Wendy in the text!) - which opens up new problems as well as happiness for him. At her suggestion, he goes looking for the Big Fellow, to discover that the wonderful jazz trumpeter is now only a driver for the band. He brings his dad back to London but reconciliation proves impossible. However, Kevin ends by telling us: 'I didn't have a thing to prove to anyone now I'd proved it to myself. I'd answered my own question, and I was the only one who needed to know what that answer was.' This is a good book, solid, honest, bringing Kevin and his life very close. Buy it.