This is a burning, raging tale of truth, pain, hate, squalor, love and dying, and wanting to die. Rachel Trezise has lifted the lid on life in the most neglected and soured of communities, and with a delicate wizardry she plunges into the depths of human despair and still manages to find flashes of dark, dark humour.Rebecca Trigianni is growing up in the Rhondda Valley as the last of the coal pits are dying and the towns and villages that had spawned during the 'Age of Coal' are left to sink as the world moves on. Rebecca is a thin, freckled red-head. Her translucent blue-veined skin is mirrored by her fine and sensitive intelligence, neither providing much of a barrier to a harsh and brutal upbringing.Happy memories are few and far between. Bathed in the warm light of her mother's bedroom, the two of them singing along together with Dolly Parton and Tom Jones, and Rebecca watching her beautiful mother dressing in swirling frocks, are fleeting moments of intimacy and contentment. By the time Rebecca is four her father has left and her mother is holding down three jobs, whilst Rebecca is looked after by her fourteen-year-old brother and his friends: ‘Boys and horror films’ are her evening entertainments. A procession of different boyfriends for Rebecca's mother finally solidifies into Brian, the one she will marry - the professional miner and amateur fisherman. The family can buy their own house, its walls dark with mould and the air fetid with decay. But in they move with their brown furniture and carpets, and for a while life is calm. Since she was little, Rebecca has been told she is different – more intelligent, quirky, precociously eloquent. Rather than making her feel special these observations bring a feeling of abnormality and isolation. But this insecurity is only the beginning of a snowballing of abuse and neglect that precipitate Rebecca into an utterly incapacitated state. As her stepfather is made redundant and her mother joins him in a race to oblivion with the ever-helpful hand of alcohol, Rebecca's world begins to disintegrate.Trezise writes with a style that is both poetic and brutal as we follow Rebecca down the spiral of her burning descent. The pain of her experiences, both physical and mental, inspected by an unwavering eye, is made palpable. The intensity of courage, honesty and rage that Trezise has poured onto the page is searing and powerful. We are swept along by it and washed ashore with Rebecca on the various ragged beaches of safety she manages to cling to before the tide takes her under again. Only the darkest humour can find a chink in this maelstrom of despair, and Trezise has a sharp, deft blade that cuts through the clouds and lets the light blink through.The final pages of the book bring Rebecca to an emerging sense of herself as a survivor, not just clinging to the wreckage but standing on solid ground, able to contemplate a future. The transformation is achieved a little hastily: a short time spent with her dying grandmother, a few stories and words of wisdom, and Rebecca can begin to climb to her feet again. But that slightly hurried denouement is the only shortcoming in this extraordinary debut novel. Rachel Trezise is a formidable talent.
