Books: 'A Certain Age'

I read this book when I was in school and I recalled that despite how good, raw and well written it was, it did make me feel extremely depressed. Like many books you read a long time ago, you choose to re-read perhaps to refresh your memory of it, or in this case to see if the effect would be the same. Well it was, so yes I felt very depressed reading it.

Not really the sort of mood you want to put yourself through, but much like the cartoon Daria, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

This book was written when Ray was out of school, post GCSEs. It resonates the feel of the 90s era, being a school kid, going through puberty and experiencing great, but confusing changes in mind as well as body, tackling the relentless dose of hormones kicking in.

Ray's protagonist is a nameless 13 year old girl, who relays her troubled home, school and personal life. She has suffered humiliation at school and a struggle to be accepted by a more respected crowd. Failing to do so by her own merit, being that all too familiar awkward personality, she promotes herself by making her body available to be groped by bored, cigarette smoking boys. There is a female admiration she pursues, Holly, who seems to hold herself well and is enviously streetwise in comparison to our protagonist. To earn Holly's approval, she accepts being match made with a boy named Robin, who shows little interest in their pairing, other than the sexual element. With this first experience of a relationship, she is exposed to degradation, assault and disrespect, from Robin and no less herself. Redemption does eventually follow when she takes charge of ending the relationship on a night out when Robin finally opens her eyes to what a complete waste of time he is.

Whilst certain characters throughout the novel come and go, recurring characters include the girl's spineless mother (explanative of the girl's lack of own self respect), her selfish, old fashioned father and her manipulative downer of a best friend Dawn.

Her bond with her mother suggests she is inclined to stick up for her during her father's relentless put downs, yet her relationship with her father suggests she is torn by wanting to keep that father/daughter bond alive amidst her teenage changes and growing up, and a desperate bid not to disappoint him (despite such instances regularly occurring).

Dawn is a particularly undesirable character. Clearly an outcast from an unloving family, their relationship is greater in years going back to childhood. The girl references in reminiscence about their bizarre and disturbing "playtimes", an insight into her acceptance of being submissive and somewhat enjoying occasions of abuse she receives; and Dawn's desperation in keeping their friendship. However, Dawn is not without obvious jealously harboured towards her so-called friend, constantly putting down her relationships with boyfriends and new friends, and bringing her down just because Dawn has such self-loathing and self-hatred. Despite not really wanting to be involved, the girl does her very best to improve Dawn's social retardation, ultimately ending in failure, yet the only thanks received for her efforts are more put downs, betrayal and thinly veiled nastiness. In fact the only time Dawn is happy and proud with herself is when she is encouraging the breakups between the girl and her boyfriends, or having poisonous telephone liaisons with the girl's father about these no good boyfriends.

We can only be thankful that despite Dawn's ugly nature, she is at least correct about them. Oliver is the girl's next boyfriend, a particularly disturbed, older man who equally likes to sprout put downs, yet ramp up the physical violence. Perhaps the most absurd and unbelievable aspect of the novel is that a 27 year old man would be accepted as the boyfriend of a 13 year old girl (who turns 14 years old through the course of the novel, not that it makes much of a difference) by her parents, yet thanks to Ray's ability to write so realistically, we are resorted to unfortunately believing it. The reality is that Oliver, who in fact turns out to be even older than first told, is a child molester and the girl's parent's obliviousness to this truth is yet another example of their failure to truly love, nurture, or even simply care about their child.

A Certain Age, despite its less than enticing content is nonetheless a must read-to-be-believed piece of work. We may not be able to like many of the characters, or situations, but we can at the very least open our eyes to the grim reality of child abuse coming from school, social lives and the home.

It is with this result from exceptional writing and talent that praise be given to Ray, especially with the knowledge that she herself was so young at the time it was written.