Issue 149

Review: Fresh Apples

20th November 2006

Gemma Howell reviews Rachel Tresize's Dylan Thomas Prize-winning book, Fresh Apples.

For a comical yet honest portrayal of Welsh valley life read Rachel Tresizes' collection of short stories, Fresh Apples. The young writer burst onto the literary scene three years ago, gaining a place on the Orange Futures List with her first novel, In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl.

Her work, categorized as Welsh urban fiction, has been compared to Niall Griffiths and John Williams for its gritty exposé of poverty, drug abuse and violence in post-industrial South Wales. Set in the Rhondda Valley, it focuses on archetypal 'valley-dwellers' including the six-year-old whose mother has been imprisoned, the teenage glue-sniffing boy and the pillpopper anxious to re-invent her roots.

The first story in her latest work, Fresh Apples, explores adolescent urges through the eyes of a suicidal boy trapped by his environment and struggling to be accepted. Against a back drop of heart-warming humour, Tresize, 28, captures teenage angst accurately and exemplifies the apocalyptic feelings that go with it: "It isn't easy to be sixteen, see, and it isn't that easy to die either".

Through her characters she effectively conveys the commonality of despair and isolation, while her authentic humour lightens the themes.

Her admirably subtle approach to issues like domestic violence provides a unique insight into life in the valleys. Her style is unadorned and she applies a balanced degree of humour and sincerity to her story-telling. Innovative and poignant with the facts - "poverty surrounded you like a neck brace" - she successfully reveals the miserable realities hidden behind government statistics.

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