The Scholar by Courttia Newland

The Scholar

Courttia Newland

Lots of dialect and 'street talk' gives direct access to the lives of cousins, Cory and Sean, growing up on on an inner London housing estate. Their world is one of jeopardy and real tension. An excellent read - told with clarity, truth and no sentiment.

Extract

Sean sat back in his seat, looking angrily all about him, taking deep breaths of air through his nose. He hadn't realised when he walked up here just how upset he really was .... Sean closed his eyes and felt his headache return. The words he wanted to say, the words that would tell Levi to take his guns, his money and his rocks, and stick them as far up his own backside as he could get them, just wouldn't come and probably never would .... In the end, as it had been so often in his relationship with Cory, Sean HAD to sort things out. Let me do the robbery man, I'll take Cory's place, he blurted the words splashing like a glass of lager in the older man's face, with much the same effect.

Parallels
  • Society Within by Courttia Newland
  • Brixton Bwoy by Rocky Carr
  • The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart by Alice Walker