The Young Team Synopsis
Glasgow is named Europe's Murder Capital, driven by a violent territorial gang and knife culture. In the housing schemes of adjacent Lanarkshire, Scotland's former industrial heartland, wee boys become postcode warriors. 2004. Azzy Williams joins the Young Team [YTP]. A brutal gang conflict with their deadly rivals, the Young Toi [YTB] begins. 2012. Azzy dreams of another life. He faces his toughest fight of all - the fight for a different future. Expect Buckfast. Expect bravado.
Expect street philosophy. Expect rave culture. Expect anxiety. Expect addiction. Expect a serious facial injury every six hours. Expect murder. Hope for a way out. Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, The Young Team is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today.
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Graeme Armstrong Press Reviews
'A swaggering, incendiary debut . . . The non-standard English forges a dazzling poetry of its own . . . pitches Armstrong straight into the first division of Scottish writers.' -- Jude Cook - Guardian
'The Young Team is a landmark in Scottish literature. It reminds me of Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.' -- Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me
'Armstrong's hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting for a new generation.' - Independent
'Raw and lyrical . . . written in a voice that recalls Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner - dialect that fizzes off the page.' - Observer
'A gripping debut novel . . . he is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction.' -- Mike Wade - The Times
'A riveting debut novel . . . it crackles with teenage energy . . . has already engendered a buzz that many other debut novelists would kill for.' - Herald
It is Trainspotting meets Clockwork Orange in this depiction of gang life in North Lanarkshire . . . it gives us a voice from a place - geographically and socio-economically - we don't often hear from. -- John Self - The Times
The Young Team is a book full of guts, power, humour and humanity. -- Kerry Hudson, author of Lowborn Bright, brittle and boiling with immediacy . . . His work is vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip. -- Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing Phenomenal. It's been ages since I read a book so funny, visceral, or powerful. -- David Whitehouse, author of Bed -
About Graeme Armstrong
Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire's gang culture. He was inspired to study English Literature following his reading of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting at just sixteen. Alongside overcoming his own struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he defied expectation to read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where, after graduating with honours, he returned to study a Master's in Creative Writing. His debut novel, The Young Team, is inspired by his experiences.
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