The classic working-class book is Down and Out in Paris and London and I really don’t like it. I did my MA in Paris and it’s ironic as I was down and out in Paris. There’s so much focus on poverty and it’s important, but it’s not just what class is about – it’s complex. Saltwater moved me to tears on several occasions; here is proof of the poetic idiosyncrasies of every family, of every person’s narrative being worthy of literature, of the fact that a good novel shouldn’t bring voices in from the margins, but travel outwards towards them, and let them tell their own story, in their own voice, in their own, unique way." For now our secrets are only ours. You press me to your chest and I am you and I am not you and we will not always belong to each other but for now it is us and here it is quiet. I rise and fall with your breath in this bed. We are safe in the pink together.” For me, the only way to write about bodies is in a fractured, fragmented way, because that’s my experience of inhabiting a body; it’s something quite dissonant. I also wanted to create a sense of life happening to you if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of power. It’s non-chronological to create a sense of how experiences are existing in linear time but also all at once within the psyche. It begins with our bodies. Skin on skin. My body burst from yours. Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us.”

The narrative is fairly straightforward, and nothing really dramatic happens externally in Lucy's life, but internally, where identity happens, things come alive. The story is more told than shown, in reflection, in memory, with little dialogue, and with some chapters running only one or two sentences. The writing is lyrical and sometimes as fresh as a slap or warm as a hug. As I said, I especially liked in Sunderland when the images and language are sharp and sometimes surprising, as when Lucy is pre-teen-- “Girls with orange cheeks in push-up bras brushed past us, smelling of the future”--as things happened more slowly, but as things get a little faster, as in London, the language seems less sharp. That makes sense because London is not deeply visceral for her in the way Sunderland or Donegal are. What will make or break it for each individual reader is our response to the prose - for me, it's laboured, try-hard, pseudo-poetic that prioritizes pretty combinations of words over meaning; others may find it lyrical:We talked about practical things when she called me in London; when the funeral would be and how I would get there. We listened to the radio during the drive from the airport and at the wake we chatted to my grandfather’s neighbours and friends. It wasn’t until he had been buried and everyone had gone home to their brandies that we were alone together in the silent cottage. The distance glinted between us, sharp and dangerous. We sat on a sheet of newspaper on the floor and looked around.

I saw a chance and I grasped it. I texted my landlord and told him to keep my deposit. I put my books into boxes and gave all of my clothes away. I took the train north to my mother’s house, then we boarded an aeroplane and hired a car and now here I am. The brevity of the segments helps to break up the emotional intensity, while stories and anecdotes from Lucy’s upbringing relieve the adolescent angst. This is where the novel shines, in Andrews’s descriptions of Lucy’s friends and family, especially her single mum, her brother, who is born profoundly deaf, and her neighbourhood. Of her grandmother, she writes: “Everything about her was silver; her voice as she sang along to the radio in the mornings, the shiny fish scales caught on her tabard at the end of the day.” In Washington, Sunderland, “Boys at school knew the factory was looming over their future, waiting for them to grow into the overalls.” This was so nostalgic for me. So many instances where I saw myself in the narrative. From what Lucy was having for tea, to the what she was wearing to go out. Perhaps if you are not a similar age to me (mid twenties) and didn't grow up in the more Northern areas of the UK, then you might not 'get it'. Its so nice to see the way I grew up written in a novel which seems odd to say but I do feel like my class and childhood era seems rarely represented in UK fiction. I suppose books written by and about my generation are hopefully going to become more popular in time. This is a first person coming-of-age story of Lucy, who becomes curious at a young age at how “language might capture emotions.” There's the few words of grief as her loving but alcoholic father fails to return for months at a time. She marvels at the way two or three words from a boy might suddenly paralyze her with desire. Then there are the times when she experiences the inexpressible, when words are not enough, no matter how she reaches for them.I rode the coloured snakes of the tube to parts of the city I'd read about' (coloured snakes? coloured snakes!) I felt confused by love; the way it could simultaneously trap you and set you free. How it could bring people impossibly close and then push them far away. How people who loved you could leave you when you needed them most.” I came home from school with something bubbling beneath my blouse' (translation: I want a belly-button piercing - just weird articulation) The writing was raw, haunting and poetic (even if at times a little purple). Had I read this instead of listen to it I know I would have underlined many many passages. It had the feeling of a memoir rather than a work of fiction. A book of breathtaking beauty. Saltwater is a visionary novel with prose that gets deep under your skin. The short, sharp chapters thrum with life. Lucy is a memorable character, her journey one that is moving and totally compelling, telling a series of deep truths about the state of our divided nation. Andrews is a major new voice in contemporary British fiction."

There were times when I wanted to hear more about the other characters, but then the entire project is devoted to one young woman’s subjectivity. There is little dialogue, but if the interiority can occasionally feel wearing, it is worth it for its refreshing perspective. Lucy feels the acute tension and anxiety that arises between leaving your community and staying. I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19. For those who leave, it will be a balm to know they are not alone. For those who stay, Saltwater tells you there is life elsewhere, but that finding it can tear your heart in two. I read lots of poetry – the Rebecca Tamás collection, Witch, is brilliant. I’m also reading Raymond Antrobus, who won the Ted Hughes award. I really loved Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi and Peach by Emma Glass. Jessica Andrews was born in 1992 in Sunderland and has spent time living in Santa Cruz, Paris, Donegal and London, and is now based in Barcelona. She co-runs an online literary magazine, the Grapevine, which gives a platform to under-represented writers and artists. Her powerful debut novel, Saltwater, tells the coming-of-age story of Lucy, moving between Sunderland, London and Ireland, and explores identity in relation to place, class and the body. Author Daisy Johnson says the book “dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone’s shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch.”From there past and present are mashed and Lucy reminisces about her childhood in Sunderland, her holidays in Ireland and her university life in London.