Ross Raisin

A funny, poignant, but ultimately twisted tale about a young farmer's son from the North Yorkshire moors who forges an unnatural friendship with a schoolgirl. To begin with, Sam Marsdyke, who narrates in a broad Yorkshire dialect full of words like 'gradely' and 'blatherskite', comes across as a bit of a modern day Heathcliff, abused and misunderstood. His father is bad-tempered, his mother has distanced herself from him, and all Sam has is nature - the farm animals and the wild moors - and show more his young sheepdog pup, Sal. So when Jo, the fifteen year old daughter of the 'townies' who buy a neighbouring farm, starts talking to him, and showing an interest in the workings of the farm, the reader almost feels glad for Sam. There are warning signs from the start - the incident at school, and taking revenge on a neighbour for imagined gossip - but perhaps Sam deserves a chance to prove himself. Is he lonely and frustrated, or angry and dangerous? The truth is like a betrayal of the reader's trust, and suddenly Sam is no longer merely quirky and awkward, with a droll line in introspection, but a complete stranger.

I enjoyed the narrative voice, which reflects Sam's character - blunt, comical, but also of another time and place. For the most part, he speaks with a plain Yorkshire accent, but Raisin peppers his character's thoughts and dialogue with archaic words and phrases, straight out of Kellett's Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, showing how Sam is tied to a dying breed of moortop farmers. He's nineteen, and living in a contemporary world of Wetherspoon's and Heartbeat daytrippers, but he sounds like a rustic character from James Herriott's books: '[the ram] steadied up when he was with the wether - poor castrated sod who kept himself pot-of-one the rest the year waiting for his charver the tup to come and stay, though I didn't know what the bugger it was them two had to talk about'. Some of Sam's observations had me smirking, but the unravelling of his disturbed mind soon sobered me up.

A fascinating novel, but a truly frightening character. show less

A top quality read, sort of like Wuthering Heights' delinquent great great great grandchild, it's a tour of the wilds of Yorkshire in the company of a narrator who is comic and sinister in equal measure. The author makes excellent use of the first-person narrative style to leave the reader wondering right to the end whether the central character is a total psycho, just misunderstood, or somewhere in between.

I particularly liked the use of dialect, happily reminiscent of my own childhood in show more Yorkshire, the only place I know where people use terms like 'ey up', 'buffit' and the rest. It was like coming home!

Of course there were no speech marks, and I have whinged about this in reviews of other books, but in this case it made sense somehow. It wasn't ever going to be a quick read, there is too much interest and meaning to be teased out of each paragraph, so I didn't mind the extra effort of figuring out the speech patterns. show less

Do not let the fact that this is a novel about football put you off reading it. It is much more than that, it is an absolutely riveting book about people that imagines the progress of a fictional League Two club over two seasons. Initially centred around Tom, a 19 year old who has been released by a Premier League team and who then struggles to make an impact at Town. The novel gradually expands to other players, their hopes, pressures and fears for their future with successes or injuries or show more lack of contracts or new signings and what these may mean for their future. It also examines the team atmosphere, the rituals and bonding, the small cruelties and the effects that this has on the players and staff. At the same time, Tom is trying to understand and keep secret his gay choices in a very masculine environment where they are heavily mocked. All these factors are vividly described in the lows and highs of a very competitive environment, not only between the teams, but also between the individuals that make up the team. show less

Four stars for the writing. I love books written in dialect and this one really comes alive. Probably make a fantastic radio play. The narrator also comes alive and while you see clearly the people around him, by the end you feel how deeply he is cut off from from all other human beings. They are part of the scenery for him, or less than the scenery. He cares for animals and people but without fully understanding the expectations between people that underpin family ties and a wider society. show more This is sufficient for working on the farm, but not for normal relationships with people.

I finished the book feeling a bit queasy and reluctant to give it 4 stars and I am still exploring just why. I felt the author was colluding with the verdict of many in the book that he was 'a bad one' and that nothing could have been done, which does not fit my own philosophy. However I decided that the author is telling it like it is - and I can read it as a person not put together right, or broken - rather than evil. There is also a dark North Eastern english element simmering in the background. Unforgiving. I shall not want to re-read this book, but while I was reading it was very compelling and I'm glad I did, despite it being so uncomfortable once the half way mark had been passed and you realise there is no salvation.

Comic it is not. Don't know how anyone could use that word with this book. show less