Ian Ayris

True Brit Grit.

Rite of passage tale and a crime fiction story rolled into one. It’s also a novel about characters and what characters dear God.

After some peer pressure from various quadrants, I’ve finally read “Abide With Me” by Ian Ayris.

I’m glad I did. It usually takes some time for me to tackle a new voice in the book firmament, and in these case, what a voice!! It has a density that is very unusual for a first book. The level of emotional reaction I was experiencing while reading it meant that I needed to catch my breath every once in a while. It’s that powerful. It’s a first person narrative, told in London’s East End vernacular of the 70s and 80s. The voice is haunting and has the power and authenticity. What elevates this book above the pack, apart from the writing, is the Brit factor. We can fully sense the darkness behind drawn curtains, and the rapport Ayris generates from this view lifts this book above its contemporaries. When I first picked it up, I was expecting a more crime based novel. However it was so much more.

And the ending, the ending, the ending, … What can I say without giving anything away?? The ending Ayris builds for the two protagonists (John and Kenny) is one so powerful, poignant, and heartbreaking it actually made me stop reading it for a moment. I just had to stop. I couldn’t go on.

As for the swearing, I’m all for authenticity. I couldn’t care less about the rest.

One of my first picks for the Best of the Best 2013.

NB: Not only for West Ham United fans…… (lisätietoja)

My original Abide by Me audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

What an emotional rollercoaster ride and what an outstanding book! I went from laughing to tearing up to gasping in shock.

Abide With Me is partly coming-of-age story and partly crime fiction. Although not a Young Adult book, kids could learn a lot from it. It is advertised as a story of football, friendship, hope and gangsters. But it’s an awful lot more than that. Amongst other things, it is also about family, community, adversity and redemption.

Set in the East End of London in the 1970s and 80s, this is the story of John and Kenny, who live on the same street. It’s a rough place, school is tough, expectations are low, money is tight. But John has a relatively settled family life and, like his Dad, he loves supporting West Ham. Kenny, however, is the odd kid, the overweight boy, the one who gets bullied and hardly ever communicates.

Told entirely in John’s first person perspective, the East End vernacular used throughout may take a little getting used to, and the use of the f-word is pretty standard, but through these means, Ian Ayris creates a flawless representation of the setting and the characters.

Growing up in the seventies and being a devoted football/soccer fan, there was a lot there that automatically resonated with me. But even if you hate sports, the story is so powerful and realistic, you are bound to become fully engaged in these two lads’ lives. I made the mistake of listening while dog walking and failed miserably at trying to not cry at a particularly tragic moment.

Due to the first person narrative and John’s East End street-smart character, this needed a narrator who could really purvey John’s personality convincingly, and, as evidenced by my emotional turmoil throughout the nearly six hours of listening, Karl Jenkinson definitely pulled it off. He doesn’t seem to have narrated many other books yet, which makes his performance even more outstanding. I was particularly impressed by how he managed to express emotions and create suspense simply by small changes in pace and tone. It sounded so genuine, you really felt as if grown-up John was providing you with a retrospective of his life.

Nothing I say will probably do this book justice, but it is one hell of a debut novel, and I hope it’ll receive the widespread attention it deserves. Can’t recommend this highly enough, a perfect audio book!

I am very curious to see what Ian Ayris will come up with next (soon, hopefully).

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.… (lisätietoja)

John Sissons is a working class kid growing up in London’s East End during the mid 1970’s. His family doesn’t have a lot, but they do have tremendous love for each other and an undying passion for football (that’s soccer for the American crowd).

Kenny Montgomery is the strange kid who lives across the street. Overweight, socially awkward, and uncommunicative to the point one could mistake him for mute, it seems to be Kenny’s lot in life to be the butt of jokes and target of bullies.

Turns out Kenny’s abuse doesn’t end when he gets home from school. As John learns firsthand one frightening afternoon when he stops in for tea, both Kenny and his mum are the victims of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Kenny’s alcoholic father.

A good kid at heart, John takes Kenny under his wing and the two form an unlikely friendship, one that grows for several years until their lives are irrevocably changed by two outbursts of violence.

The first finds all the pain Kenny has suffered and repressed throughout his life erupting in spectacular fashion, while the second results when John, now a dropout, and some friends plan a holdup that goes decidedly sideways. The fallout from those events sends John and Kenny down separate paths in life for the better part of a decade. When they’re finally reunited they discover that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Written from John’s point of view and in the rough-edged vernacular of London’s East End, Abide With Me is as immersive and atmospheric as a novel can get. There’s nothing pretty or sugarcoated about the lives John and Kenny lead, and therein is actually where the true beauty of Abide With Me lies. Author Ian Ayris has an uncanny talent for exquisitely expressing and bringing to life the type of small details and everyday triumphs and tragedies that define our lives. Be it John and his father sharing the joy of their favorite football club’s success or Kenny finding solace in staring at the streetlight outside his window at night, Ayris realizes it’s the little things in life that ultimately make the biggest difference.

And while the plot of Abide With Me is fiction, Ayris has said that the setting and many of the memories and emotions were indeed mined from his own life. That willingness of Ayris to tap directly into his own childhood hopes and dreams, pain and confusion gives John’s voice a clarity and rawness that rings undeniably true. This boy, and later young man, is as real as any person you’ll ever meet. More so, actually, as Ayris takes us into the darkest corners of John’s mind, allowing the reader to share and experience every triumph and humiliation, every ambition and sacrifice in a way one rarely, if ever, gets to share with another person in reality.

That Abide With Me is a debut novel is, quite frankly, stunning. Ayris brings a depth and level of emotion to his writing that most authors strive their entire career to achieve, and which many never do. Never is that more apparent than in the ending Ayris crafts for John and Kenny, one so powerful, poignant, and heartbreaking it actually brought tears to my eyes. If there is even a shred of justice in this world Abide With Me will garner the kind of widespread attention it so richly deserves.… (lisätietoja)