Awaydays - Tapa blanda

The first page of this excellent debut novel shows a map of Birkenhead featuring the Tranmere Rovers football ground, the train line to Wrexham and an arrow pointing to Chester. Not exactly the definition of chic? Well in 1979, it wasn't far off. Awaydays is about "The Pack", a gang of Tranmere Rovers Hooligans who terrorise those northern towns unfortunate enough to have a third division football team. But Awaydays is also about the implications of Margaret Thatcher's first government, the music of Joy Division and the Only Ones, youth unemployment, the explosion of heroin use, the rise of the casual street movement and what young people do when the world gets tough. The protagonist is caught between two worlds. Called Carty by the lads in the Pack and Paul by his family, he has nine O- Levels and acknowledges a tendency to "lay the accent on a bit thick when I'm with the pack, but I modulate it for all sorts of situations. I can go very posh indeed". When his worlds inevitably collide Carty is forced to making a life-changing decision. Should he stay or should he go? Take an Awayday and find out. It's 1979 and in Birkenhead smack and Maggie Thatcher are still less of an issue than Lois jeans and Adidas Forest Hills training shoes. For Paul Carty, 19, and his mystical, Joy Division-loving mate Elvis, life revolves around The Pack, a mob of violent Tranmere Rovers supporters. Carty and Elvis travel the Northern wastelands, always by train, causing mayhem in the 'woollyback' strongholds of Halifax, Crewe and Chesterfield. For most of the mob, The Pack is their reason for living. But Elvis, who loves Ezra Pound, and Carty, still getting over the death of his mother, are starting to get bored of it all. The question is: will the Pack let them go? And can they get by without each other?