Books of the Month

'Junk' by Melvin Burgess

Life can be tough when you’re fourteen. Tar has things pretty bad: his mum’s an alcoholic, and his dad’s started hitting both of them. In the opening scenes of Junk, he’s a scared boy about to run away from home. When he finds himself in the big city of Bristol, kipping in squats and begging for change, he almost gives up and goes home. But his girlfriend Gemma comes to visit and things start to look up…

Except that Gemma has run away too – not to escape a bad home life but to sample a taste of freedom, and now she’s hungry for it. Miraculously, it seems that the pair land on their feet when they move in with some cheerful anarchists who look after them like surrogate parents. But it’s not long before Gemma and Tar fall in with a crowd who like to push their limits. They don’t just smoke occasionally, or do a few pills. They’re on ‘junk’ – also known as heroin, and soon, predictably, Gemma and Tar are too. At first they think they’re in control – they can stop whenever they want. But when they starts to need more and more to feel the buzz, they realise the drug has control of them.

This is a novel about teenagers, but it’s not just for teenagers. As well as making the book an engrossing read, Burgess’s skill is in making us empathise, but at the same time remain detached enough to see what’s happening to Gemma and Tar. There’s an aptly bittersweet conclusion which reinforces the sense that life after junk will never be the same again.

Susan Tranter

Back to main page