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This isn't exactly one of those books you approach with feverish
glee. There can be little more offputting than the diaries of
a lovelorn teenager, stuck in a soulless Scottish town, feeling
like they don't belong and that nobody understands their suffering.
You can almost hear the sullen voice of Harry Enfield's teenage
alter ego Kevin before you eveb get past the cover notes.
But thankfully Rhona Cameron's debut novel isn't the cocktail
of whining self-pity and provincial misery that the premise suggests,
instead being a lively, and sometimes funny account of her formative
years in Musselburgh.
The autobiographical book is based on her diaries from 1979,
but thankfully reinterpreted through the more cynical eyes of
a worldly-wise thirtysomething, rejigged to give the story some
sort of dramatic structure and with the names changed to protect
the guilty.
She remains admirably honest about her feelings, and the picture
that emerges is a warm and often humorous take on the tribulations
everyone suffers as rampant hormones drag you kicking to adolescence.
Cameron's early struggles with her lesbianism are sometimes
farcical, sometimes sad; while her coping with a dying father
is obviously more downbeat, but even this has tender memories
of the good times they had.
She writes with an easy, yet evocative style, perfectly recreating
the cosy tedium of family holidays or the excitement of the school
disco, and it's hard not to cast your mind back to your own teenage
years as she relives some of her embarrassments, fantasies and
ambitions.
The book gets slightly bogged down in the third quarter, as
teenage life has the unfortunate habit of repeating itself, and
the frequent slips into her mafioso daydreams do get a bit tiresome
- but otherwise this is a fine read.
Cameron's made some odd career choices of late. Though perversely,
the worse the project - I'm A Celebrity or the gameshow Russian
Roulette - the more famous she becomes. Yet while this career
path might be expected to lead to such schedule Polyfilla like
I Love 1979, Cameron has taken a measured, intelligent and witty
look at what the year really meant to her.
So perhaps this confident literary debut marks the discovery
of her true calling away from the stand-up stage.
Steve Bennett
October 6, 2003
Nineteen Seventy-Nine: A Big Year In A Small Town is published
by Ebury at £9.99. Click
here to buy from Amazon for £7.99
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