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“Raises uncomfortable questions about this abandoned generation of poor, semi-literate, “feral” youth.” – Press for Feral Youth

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“A breakthrough book… Alesha is compelling, even loveable. In the choices she has to make, she raises some uncomfortable questions about this abandoned generation of poor, semi-literate, “feral” youth.”  – Independent on Sunday

“Are they really “feral”, or is that just an excuse that keeps us from thinking about the problems?” – The Guardian

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“Feral Youth is both moving and shocking. It grips from the first page.” – Words With Wings

“A story from the streets: An extract from Polly Courtney’s novel Feral Youth about 15-year-old Alesha, who gets caught up in the London riots.”  – We Love This Book

“Courtney’s latest book gives an insight into the young lives of generation recession, revealing the riots as inevitable and a long-time-coming.” – The Student Journals

“In her speech, Polly thanked everyone who helped her with the publication of Feral Youth (both Jennifer and Sarah were summoned on stage!), and reminisced of her decision to leave HarperCollins – which she did so fairly publicly, in 2011, at the launch party for It’s A Man’s World – and return to self-publishing. “ – Troubador Publishing

“What I’m trying to do is get into the head of Alesha and show people what it’s really like to be like her and how it’s very different to a lot of the stereotypes of young people today…I think she’s a person people need to know about.”  – Ones To Watch

“The more I heard from young people, the more opinionated Alesha and some of the other characters became.”  – The Londonist

“A book (and message) that should resonate with many young people.” – CultureFly

“It is Alesha’s resourcefulness and positivity, alongside her underlying goodness, that makes us root for her, even when her actions seem deplorable, and it is this that pushes the narrative on as we race towards the unexpected ending and a potential new start for Alesha.”  – The National Student

“The backdrop for the novel is the build-up to the 2011 summer riots and it’s written from Alesha’s perspective. The ambition is to get readers thinking about the reality of life for many young people like Alesha, who are either ignored or stigmatised in the mainstream press – labelled ‘feral’ and assumed to be beyond hope.” – The Omnivore

“Then I read it, and I was hooked. Polly Courtney gets it. She understands why things are the way they are. Courtney tells the truth and she does so through the eyes of a character that you are rooting for from page one.”  – Shout Out UK

“On 26 June we went to Soho for the launch of Polly Courtney’s latest book ‘Feral Youth’. The place was packed with young people, journalists, youth orgs, publishers, film makers and other cool cats…” – Youth Media Agency

“I opted to return to self-publishing precisely because I longed for collaboration. For Feral Youth, I wanted to liaise directly with my cover designer. I wanted to seek feedback not just from one lone individual with a subjective view from her ivory tower, but from a stable of trusted, crowd-sourced advisers as well as from my professional editor.” – Huffington Post

“What I love about self-publishing is the ability to carefully choose those third parties and to work directly with them, instead of being at the end of a long chain of faceless entities in a publishing house.” – Teleread

“While this week has proven to be filled with interesting discourse on the current state of self-publishing, some counterarguments just write themselves.” – Good eReader

“It’s due to the fact that Courtney knows the importance of collaboration that she succeeds in self-publishing.” – Kirkus Reviews

“How can a first-time, self-published author gain the attention of the BBC and the Times? And after such a coup, what can go wrong when you join a big publishing house?” – NY Book Editors

“The sense of freedom, creativity and entrepreneurship was instilled in me from a very young age.” – Words With Jam

“Walking away from a publishing deal with HarperCollins was a massive step, but one that has given me the freedom to write what I believe is an important story: the story of Alesha, a vulnerable, disenfranchised young person from a generation of disaffected youth.” – Chptrs: Publishing’s Next Chapter

“Alesha’s is the voice of a barely literate teenager, reaching out to us from a world we’d prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.” – The Library Cat

“In the summer of 2011, I was lying in bed, smelling burning police cars and scrolling through Twitter…” – High Heels & Book Deals

“Her new, self-published book, Feral Youth — involving the 2011 London riots — is scheduled for an August 1 availability in the States.” – Jane Friedman

“Immersive book launch for Polly Courtney’s latest novel”  – Book Brunch

“Feral Youth is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Emotionally charged throughout I instantly felt a connection to the disenfranchised protagonist.” – Creative Bloc

“A great, compelling story told from the perspective of a 15 year old girl growing up in Peckham, South London.” – Completely Novel

“Feral Youth is as life-affirming as Trainspotting and will connect with teenagers and adults alike.” – Lambert Nagle

“There was a lack of cohesion between what they believed about themselves and their books and the “profit mindset” demonstrated by their publishers.” – Stand Out Books

“I don’t like to see inequality or prejudice going unnoticed.” – Nolan Parker

“After the riots, I was left thinking why did that happen?” – Me, My Books & I

“In short, it’s been a really liberating experience for me. I’ve been able to write about a subject I care about, retaining control of the way it’s published.” – Movellas

“Alesha’s is the voice of a barely literate teenager, reaching out to us from a world we’d prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.” – Catriona Troth

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“The truth is, it ain’t just a race thing. They talk like it is, but really and truly it’s black against white, young against old, authorities against the rest… There’s bare reasons for feeling vexed right now.”

I have just finished reading Polly Courtney’s remarkable new book, Feral Youth.

Feral Youth is story of Alesha – a fifteen year old from Peckham in South London. At the start of the book, Alesha is living under the radar, dodging social services, gang violence and her alcoholic mother. But she has a roof over her head, a friend she owes everything to, a youth centre that provides an occasional refuge, and a ‘rep’ that provides some flimsy protection on the streets.

Feral Youth

Feral Youth

In the course of a few short weeks over the summer of 2011, even those are taken away. No wonder Alesha’s angry. Angry enough that when messages start crowding onto her phone, telling her riots are kicking off all over south London, she is ready to take revenge on the whole self-satisfied world she sees around her.

Only, it’s beginning to look as if the one person she can really trust isn’t from the streets at all. She’s Alesha’s eccentric former music teacher, Miss Merfield – and she’s trying to tell Alesha there’s another way out.

Courtney has broken some taboos in writing this book. First of all – as many people already know – she is the self-published writer who gained a coveted traditional publishing deal, only to ditch it when she realised she was being shoe-horned into writing books she didn’t really want to write.

To cap that, she has written the book her agent told her not to, the one that was too ‘niche’. (“How niche are young people?” Courtney demands at the launch.)

Finally, she is a young, white, middle-class woman, writing in the voice of a homeless, mixed-race teenager from South London. “You can’t possibly be authentic,” she was told, when she mooted the idea.

Polly Courtney at the launch of Feral Youth

Polly Courtney at the launch of Feral Youth

Courtney refused to be put off. Motivated by her own anger at the ill-informed responses to the 2011 riots in British cities, she spent time with girls from Westwood College in Croydon, learning from their point of view what it was like to be a teenage in South London today, how they saw the riots and the reasons behind them – and most of all, listening to their voices and learning how they spoke to one another.

When the riots kicked off in August 2011, I was away on an oh-so-middle-class family holiday in Cornwall. I looked on from a distance, seeing events unfold on television, reading about then in the newspapers. What I struck me in those first few days was the way commentators were contrasting the supposed ‘mindlessness’ and ‘criminality’ of the 2011 rioters with what they now chose to cast as the ‘legitimate beefs’ of 1981 Brixton rioters.

What? Did no one remember the initial response to the Brixton riots – before the Scarman Report shed a chink of light on the causes? Did no one remember Thatcher saying: “No one should condone violence. No one should condone the events … They were criminal, criminal.”

And did no one think, even for a moment…

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REVIEW ON AUTHOR CATRIONA TROTH’S WEBSITE

“The protaganists in her new novel are poor, abandoned and fighting back. Katy Guest met their champion” – Independent on Sunday

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Polly Courtney interview: The voice of the recession generation

Excerpt from Independent on Sunday, 16th June 2013
Independent on Sunday

As I wait to meet Polly Courtney in Peckham, south London, where her new novel is set, a young homeless man is settling down to beg outside the station while I read a report in The Independent about the still-toxic world of banking. Both are arenas that Courtney recognises. As a bright young engineering graduate in the early 2000s she worked for a year as a “high-flying” analyst at Merrill Lynch, before she quit in disgust to write a novel based on the experience. Six books later, she is about to publish Feral Youth, which focuses on the 2011 London riots. There could be no one better placed to understand how the two things are connected.

“I live in Ealing”, she explains, “and [in the summer of 2011] I was lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh my god I can smell cars burning’. This was happening in our quiet, leafy Ealing, in our city, and like a lot of people I was thinking, ‘Why … ?’ I assumed that over the next few weeks and months we’d start hearing more about the causes – the long-term stuff – and it felt like no one was doing that. Politicians were very quick to say, ‘It’s gangs, it’s bad parenting’, and I just thought, ‘You know, that is not an answer!'”

Courtney read the early reports about the riots, went to events, and also started mentoring a child. Now, she has spent two years talking and listening to young people growing up in the crucible in which the riots were ignited, and the resulting novel is an unsentimental and shocking account of Generation Recession.

This is a very different novel for Courtney, whose previous books include well-written commercial fiction such as the “City” novel, Golden Handcuffs, and It’s A Man’s World, set at a struggling lads’ mag. Feral Youth deserves to be her breakthrough book, the one that marks her out as a serious writer. In fact, one agent wondered if it was “too literary”. (“That’s not a problem for me!” she laughs. “What does it mean? It’s too good?”)

The book begins as its unlikely heroine, 15-year-old Alesha, is expelled from school for attacking an affiliate of a rival gang. She’s just learnt that her 17-year-old friend has been “shanked” (stabbed) when her teacher asks her a question about Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. “Truth is, I don’t see how this book is gonna help me live my life … Reggie Bell’s lying dead on a slab right now, bled dry through a slit in his neck. Knowing why George shot Lennie ain’t top of my priority list.”

Courtney, a well-spoken Cambridge graduate, had help with the slang from friends, youth workers, and schoolchildren. There is a glossary for the uninitiated at the front of the book. But in finding out how Alesha would speak, she learnt more than she bargained for from young south Londoners. “I went into a couple of schools,” she recalls. “I got them to write, and explained that we were going to write in a fairly phonetic way. They’d never done that, and they were surprised that they were allowed to. Actually, they wrote way more interesting and involved things than I expected. They wrote about things like stop-and-search and being accused by security guards. The anger came out.”

The riots, and Alesha’s part in them, take up only a few pages in the middle of the book, and by the time they come…

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW

“Moving and shocking, Feral Youth opens our eyes to a world that’s very different from the stereotypes.” – Words With Wings

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Feral Youth: stripping away the stereotypes

Originally posted on June 19, 2013 by Clodagh Phelan – click here to read the original review

Her novels cover misogyny in the City, sexism, racism, fame culture and now, in Feral Youth, the summer riots of 2011. So it continues to amaze me that Harper Collins chose to market Polly Courtney’s books as chick-lit. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised for we live in a world where, more often than not, it’s the marketing department that makes crucial decision such as the title and the design of a book’s cover; a world where a literary agent once told me that my mistake was writing books for readers, when I should be aiming them at publishers. Thankfully this last attitude is still pretty rare.01

Nevertheless, the traditional publishing world is heavily stacked against authors, especially first time authors. But even established writers are feeling the pinch. In this climate, and given the struggle many writers have to find a publisher, Polly’s decision to sack the mighty HarperCollins took courage, spirit and self-belief. She has never looked back.

Not only is Polly even more successful than she was before, she has become a pathfinder. By daring to take on a mighty publishing house she has shown the rest of us that it can be done. That we can publish and market our own books. That we don’t have to accept what the traditional publishers tell us is best for us. And, if you are not sure of the process, I urge you to read her piece in the Huffington Post, in response to an article by John Green. It contains one of the most succinct descriptions I have seen of how the two worlds of traditional publishing and self-publishing actually work.

Feral Youth is her sixth novel and her first since leaving Harper Collins. Its genesis was indeed the London Riots of 2011, though in fact these take up only a part of the book. What it does do is explore the causes of the disaffection. In the months following the riots Polly was surprised that no one seemed to be looking at the underlying causes, instead they were, as usual, laying the blame on ‘gangs and bad parenting’. That, she felt, was not the answer, so she decided to find out for herself.

Already a mentor at Kids Company, Polly spent the next two years going into schools and youth groups, getting to know these marginalised children as individuals and not simply as the ‘feral youths’ characterized by the tabloids and politicians. She wanted to discover what it would be like to be them. What, if anything, did they care about? What motivated them?

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It wasn’t all straightforward. She had to contend with suspicion as to her own motives and how she was going to portray the youngsters in the book. It took time but gradually she was accepted. And once she was she found herself among a group of spirited, energetic, smart and positive young people. Youngsters who were light years away from the way they were portrayed in the media. But yes they were angry, for good reason. They were also, unexpectedly, political.

Feral Youth opens our eyes to a world that’s very different from the stereotypes we are so often presented with. It’s both moving and shocking. It grips from the first page, not simply because it’s a compelling read but because we are touched by the characters and in particular by 15-year old Alesha – ignored, confused, torn between two worlds. As we follow her story we are drawn in. Which one will she choose? Has she the strength to break with her past? Such is the power of the novel that we really mind.

Feral Youth is available in all good book shops from 26 June 2013, both paperback and e-book. It is priced at £8.99 / £1.99.

The launch party will be held in central London on 26 June 2013. For tickets and enquiries, please get in touch via the contact page.

What the reviewers say:

 “Courtney has an ability to breed empathy for an ethnic minority often subjected to negative stereotypes”

-Metro

“Feral Youth is as compelling as it is horrifying. It lifts the lid on the lives of marginalised young people that the media demonises and the rest of us prefer to ignore.”

– Fiona Bawdon

“Feral Youth deserves to be her breakthrough book, the one that marks her out as a serious writer.”

– Katy Guest, Independent on Sunday

“If you want to understand why young people took to the streets two summers ago, read this book.” – Sonya Thomas, Reading the Riots

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Praise for Feral Youth

Feral Youth

“A breakthrough book that raises uncomfortable questions about this abandoned generation of poor, semi-literate, ‘feral’ youth.” – Independent on Sunday

“Feral Youth is as compelling as it is horrifying. It lifts the lid on the lives of marginalised young people that the media demonises and the rest of us prefer to ignore.” – Fiona Bawdon

“The voice of the recession generation” – Katy Guest, Independent on Sunday 

“The riots were widely misunderstood. The perception of feral youth causing havoc, driven by nothing more than criminalisation, was mooted from the start and stuck. It meant that the underlying causes such as poverty, broken homes and deprivation were largely unexamined. This book changes that. If you want to understand why so many young people took to the streets two summers ago, read this book.” – Sonya Thomas, Reading the Riots 

“Feral Youth is a unique story that brings the lives and challenges of urban youth to the fore in a provocative way, giving an insight into life on London’s streets beyond the negative stereotypes and provoking us to address the underlying causes of the riots.” – Patrick Regan OBE, Founder & CEO, XLP

“Seeing the World through the eyes of youth, as Polly has achieved with Feral Youth, is something politicians and leaders of industry need to strive to achieve. It gives a unique insight to the very real problems encountered in some of our most deprived areas. Alesha wants to feel self-respect and love from those around her and acceptance from society, but taking the right path and making the right choices is a struggle . The stark reality of life on the streets today is that the wrong choices are often the easiest ones.” – Gary Trowsdale, Damilola Taylor Trust

“Feral Youth is an important book.” – After Nyne

“Feral Youth is as life-affirming as Trainspotting and will connect with teenagers and adults alike.” – Lambert Nagle

“Alesha’s is the voice of a barely literate teenager, reaching out to us from a world we’d prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.” – Catriona Troth

“This is not just a story – this is many children’s reality” – Gracia McGrath OBE, Chief Executive Chance UK

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Feral Youth takes us into the (under)world of Alesha & JJ through a great story that is beautifully written and makes compulsive reading.

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Obviously those of us who work and volunteer with children & young people in inner cities know that for many young people, this is not just a story; this way of life, or one very like it, is their reality. And that also makes this a very important book because everyone needs to know that many children live unsupported, frightening & dangerous lives that often go unseen by adults even if those children live on their doorstep.

I hope people read this book and find out how they can become Miss Merfield to a vulnerable young person.

– Gracia McGrath OBE, Chief Executive Chance UK

Chance UK work with 5 – 11 year olds with behavioural difficulties, those children most likely to go on to criminal, offending behaviour later in life. The children are matched with adult volunteer mentors who help them find ways of improving their behaviour, raise their aspirations & develop new skills that improve their life chances.

“Feral Youth is as life-affirming as Trainspotting and will connect with teenagers and adults alike.” – Lambert Nagle

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Rebellion on a South London street

 

You’ve seen Alesha – or your children have: she’s the one standing in the shadows, watching, hood drawn up, at the bus stop, eyeing up the trainers and the mobile phones. And then one day, a newcomer to the area turns up whose parents are too naïve to know that sending your kid off to school with the latest trainers is asking for it… And that kid is followed by a gang of yoots and he’s mugged – all because of Alesha’s expert appraisal of how much his shoes 

might be worth.

Feral Youth

By choosing to tell Alesha’s story in the first person, Courtney takes us deep inside the world of an abandoned 15-year-old, for whom home means living with her boyfriend at his nan’s place – with a staffie called GBH completing their little family or fam – in Alesha speak. And then Social Services steps in and decides Nan can’t live on her own and puts her in a home. The authorities don’t even know Alesha and JJ exist so once again they’re back on the streets.

You may have written-off the Aleshas of this world – the feral youth of the title – but no matter how hard you try to dismiss Alesha’s twisted world-view, Polly Courtney reminds us that, once you strip away the prickly exterior, that Alesha is really no different from any other complex, contradictory and bloody-minded teenager. Because one thing’s for sure, there’s no point in arguing with teenagers. Not only do they have all the answers, but their opinions are the only ones that count. And either it’s right or it’s wrong. All or nothing. Oh, the arrogance of youth! From Alesha’s perspective, what use is it for her to get an education and then a job? Here is Alesha on schoolwork: ‘Truth is, I don’t see how this book is gonna help me live my life. Is it gonna get me a flat?… What’s the point in talking about made-up killings in a made-up book when there’s real ones going on down the road?’

And if you’re stuck in a run-down estate controlled by gangs, you’ve got to choose to side with one or the other. Otherwise you’ll have no protection when you need it. Just as the pro-gun lobby in the US maintains that to fight violent crime, you fight back with ever more violent weaponry, Alesha applies the same warped reasoning, justifying why she carries a knife.

But then Alesha’s world starts to unravel. She is sold out and set up by gang members she assumed were her brethren, not just once but twice and both resulting in brutal attacks. But, you can beat her up and violate her but you can’t put Alesha down. Because she picks herself up again, telling herself she still has all the answers.

And then one day her old music teacher comes looking for her and gives Alesha a glimpse of an alternative world and even manages to get her to an interview for a job that pays minimum wage. But the ever resourceful Alesha has other ideas: ‘What’s the point of working for minimum wage when I can make two ton a day just by standing still.’ Because if there’s one tribe that Alesha knows all too well, it’s crackheads as her mother is one and so too is JJ’s.

The closure of a youth centre because of government cutbacks and the cover-up by the police over the arrest of a gang suspect inflames simmering tensions on the estate. And one summer’s evening in 2011, courtesy of instant messaging, kids are told to be in a particular place and one picks up a brick and then another follows…..As the word spreads, suddenly gang affiliations don’t matter – nor does race as everyone who is around that evening makes a choice – will they or won’t they join the rioters?

Feral Youth is as life-affirming as Trainspotting and will connect with teenagers and adults alike – even if the world you inhabit is, as Alesha describes anywhere outside of London as: ‘ a tiny dead place made of stone, where there’s less to do than there is round here’. Because one thing I do know is that the next time there’s an act of youthful rebellion, and the tabloid press and government tries to absolve themselves of all societal responsibility, I don’t want to be one of those, nodding in agreement, blaming it all on feral youth.

Feral Youth doesn’t pretend that there’s a simple answer to youth violence and disengagement; it goes one better than that, challenging us to stop coming up with sound-bite solutions to complex problems.

Alison Ripley Cubitt co-writes with Sean Cubitt under the pen name Lambert Nagle. Their latest book, Revolution Earth, is available now.

“Feral Youth is a unique story that brings the lives and challenges of urban youth to the fore in a provocative way.” – Patrick Regan OBE

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Praise for Feral Youth

Feral Youth“Feral Youth is as compelling as it is horrifying. It lifts the lid on the lives of marginalised young people that the media demonises and the rest of us prefer to ignore.” – Fiona Bawdon

“Feral Youth is a unique story that brings the lives and challenges of urban youth to the fore in a provocative way, giving an insight into life on London’s streets beyond the negative stereotypes and provoking us to address the underlying causes of the riots.” – Patrick Regan OBE, Founder & CEO, XLP

“Seeing the World through the eyes of youth, as Polly has achieved with Feral Youth, is something politicians and leaders of industry need to strive to achieve. It gives a unique insight to the very real problems encountered in some of our most deprived areas. Alesha wants to feel self-respect and love from those around her and acceptance from society, but taking the right path and making the right choices is a struggle . The stark reality of life on the streets today is that the wrong choices are often the easiest ones.” – Gary Trowsdale, Damilola Taylor Trust

“Feral Youth is an important book.” – After Nyne

“The riots were widely misunderstood. The perception of feral youth causing havoc, driven by nothing more than criminalisation, was mooted from the start and stuck. It meant that the underlying causes such as poverty, broken homes and deprivation were largely unexamined. This book changes that. If you want to understand why so many young people took to the streets two summers ago, read this book.” – Sonya Thomas, Reading the Riots 

“Feral Youth is as life-affirming as Trainspotting and will connect with teenagers and adults alike.” – Lambert Nagle

 

FERAL YOUTH: Book launch!

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We are excited to announce the launch of Polly Courtney’s sixth novel

 FERALYOUTH

Wednesday 26th June

Drinks & canapes 6.30pm
Speeches 7.45pm
Book signings 8.15
After-party: midnight

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“A UNIQUE STORY”– PATRICK REGAN OBE, XLP

“THIS IS NOT JUST A STORY… THIS IS MANY CHILDREN’S REALITY”– GRACIA MCGRATH OBE

“IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHY SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE TOOK TO THE STREETS TWO SUMMERS AGO, READ THIS BOOK.” – SONYA THOMAS, READING THE RIOTS

Can Alesha see a way out?

And as riots sweep the nation, whose side will she take?

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For more information or to request an invitation, please email info@pollycourtney.com

“A dark, thrilling read -not your average slice of chick-lit.” – Closer magazine

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Praise for The Day I Died

The Day I Died“A dark, thrilling read -not your average slice of chick-lit.” – Closer magazine

“I think a lot of people at one time or another in their lives wish that they could start all over again. I found this book to be well written, interesting and the characters very realistic.” – Chronicle

“An intriguing and incredible story that really makes you think…” – BBC Radio Shropshire

“The thing I can’t get out of my head is what if? Could it really happen? I actually think it could….” – SJW

“A fascinating read.” – BBC Radio Kent