Verwandte Artikel zu Sunburn: A heartfelt sapphic love story and coming-of-age...

Sunburn: A heartfelt sapphic love story and coming-of-age novel - Softcover

Howarth, Chloe Michelle

 
9780857308412: Sunburn: A heartfelt sapphic love story and coming-of-age novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0857308416 ISBN 13: 9780857308412
Verlag: Oldcastle Books, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp....

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chloe Michelle Howarth was born in July 1996. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. She attended university at IADT in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, where she studied English, Media and Cultural Studies. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp....

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.


1
June 1989
Now is the time between birth and slaughter. Another
Summer has arrived. I spend my days waiting for something to
happen. Something glorious, even something tragic. Nothing
ever happens.
It’s hard in the countryside, when there is nothing to do and
nowhere to go. Life in the Summer goes slow, like one long,
drawn-out fade of the sun. Doesn’t every day in Crossmore feel
that way, at this tricky age? Without the structure of school, and
without any amenities in the town, there isn’t much to do but
hang around the village. Mother calls this loitering. She seems
to take a stricter dislike to me in the Summer. I can understand
that. Between my newfound admiration for drinking, the threat
of a blundered attempt at sex, and the incurable frustration I
feel, I wouldn’t expect her to like me very much. Often, I am just
as annoyed with myself as she is. Yes, I am at a very tricky age.
Perhaps when Mother was my age, she was like me. Once she
might have felt the same thrill that I do when sharing a cigarette
with the girls or coming home late. Perhaps she has forgotten
what it is to only get glimpses of independence. Those glimpses
are everything to me. Feeling adult is everything to me. It gives
me a sense of self, which is important, I think. Recently, I have
really wanted to figure out who I am. There must be more to me
than being Martin Burke’s best friend or one of the girls or the
Nolans’ daughter. I’m just not sure what that is.
Today Martin and I walked the long and bumpy road into
the village together. There is a lot of talk about Martin and me.
We are only friends. Although I presume we will end up as
something more than that eventually. Truthfully, I don’t like
thinking about it. I just enjoy his company, that’s all. I function
far better with him than without. When we were eight, the
Burkes withdrew Martin from St Anne’s National School to go
instead to St Andrew’s, twenty minutes away. There was some
trouble with his older brother and a teacher which his parents
didn’t want repeated. Off he went. I didn’t think I would even
notice his absence. Besides one feverish breakout of kiss chase
in the yard, we never really played together in school. I didn’t
expect there would be anything to miss. But then he was gone,
and I missed him every day. I felt so outside of things. It took
me a long while to look around and not expect to see Martin
smiling back at me. But it’s easy to adjust to things when you’re
young. I got used to the void, it was fine. I was one of the girls
after all, even without any girl friends.
On long school days, when I was missing him, I used to
daydream that he and I could be married on our Communion
Day. His and my school always joined up for the day, as well as
the Gaelscoil, and still with the three classes there were only
ever thirty of us. I knew that Martin would be at the altar in his
suit, and I would be there in my white dress, and so it would just
look right. I used to plan it so that when he said ‘Amen’, I would
kiss him, and then we would be married. My most plain and
easy dream; I don’t even think anybody would have been too
upset with me if I had kissed him. It would probably have been
funny and well-remembered.
He takes me as far as the chipper, where the girls are all
waiting for me. He will bring the boys in later. Our groups
were never really separate like this before. But around the time
that Maria Kealy became aware of the boys as boys, we split in
two. Maria’s interests very much influence the interests of the
group, and so everybody became somewhat obsessed with the
boys. If Martin and I were not magnets to each other, the girls
might never speak to them. I am still waiting to find the boys
intimidating. Often, I find my own girls more intimidating
than them. Until I became the bridge between us all, I thought
that I was a shy person, a sort of trembling leaf. Now I know
that I am not a leaf, but a strong branch. I connect the blossom
to the bark. Thanks to the girls’ weak hearts, I have realised
my own bravery. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t give to swooning
as easily as the others. These days the girls let themselves
crumble when the boys come around. I’m hoping that I’m just
late developing, and in a month or two, I’ll start to crumble as
well. I can’t stand being on the outside of what everyone else
is feeling.
The windows of the chipper reach from the ceiling to the
floor, and they play the same Eurodance CD on loop. I can see
the girls inside now. There is Maria. Endlessly lovely Maria,
with her tightly curled hair, her pointed nose, her long and
straight torso. And there is bright yellow-blonde Eimear, and
flaxen lesser-blonde Joan. Bernadette, and her teeth which so
desperately need braces, and Patricia, barely visible behind
her camouflage of freckles. And Susannah, beautiful sunbeam
Susannah, with her coat folded up on the seat that she is saving
for me. The walls are lined with white tiles, and there are strips
of fluorescent lights in the ceiling which put shadows on their
young faces. The bell above the door chimes, announcing me,
and they all turn to look. How would they describe me now?
Susannah lifts up her coat for me, camel-brown suede, and
before I can even say anything about it, she says,
‘Vintage.’
I could have guessed. A lot of my clothes could be considered
vintage. They have been given to me by older cousins, some
even saved from Mother’s youth. Somehow my sort of vintage
isn’t as cool as Susannah’s. She is miles ahead of the rest of us,
with double ear piercings, her own hi-fi, and a hefty inheritance
coming her way.
This food gives us acne, and yet we eat it all the time.
Bernadette is not eating because she doesn’t want to be seen with
a mouth full of chips when the boys arrive. Bernadette doesn’t
eat around people, I think we were in primary school the last
time I saw her put anything in her mouth. She is perched on
the end of her seat, sucking her teeth like she thinks they are
dirty. Joan, with her oval face having perhaps the worst reaction
to puberty of us all, asks a plain question, which starts a fire
among us.
‘Any news about the Debs?’
This Summer, the Debs has been a greater concern to us
than...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Oldcastle Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0857308416
ISBN 13 
9780857308412
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
Niedersachsen
49078
Deutschland