Brass (Canongate)

Nineteen-year-old Millie O'Reilley is, clever, spiky and adored by men - yet utterly forlorn. Even though she has the devotion of her professor father, Jerry, and the respect of the hard-knocks in South Liverpool, Millie feels a sense of growing alienation. Increasingly disillusioned with her University course and fellow students, she seeks an escape in the underbelly of Liverpool's Cathedral area - home to crackheads, pimps, pushers and, most intriguing to Millie, whores. And when an encounter with a world weary prostitute turns into an after hours odyssey of drink fuelled self-abuse it, ultimately, leads Millie toward questioning who she is and what she wants to get out of life. Shockingly candid, brutally poetic, Helen Walsh has created a portrait of a city and a generation that offers a female perspective on the harsh truth of growing up in today's Britain. Brass is an unsettling but ultimately compassionate account of the possibilities of identity and the desirability of love.