Staying Up [Hardcover]

Robert E. Swindells (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 1988

Brian Gower is fifteen and supports Barfax Town soccer team. He does well in school but, living in a noisy overcrowded home where he can't study, wonders if it's worth the effort. Debbie likes Brian but she can't stand soccer and won't go to games with him. If her parents had their way, their daughter would never go out at all. She would sit in their spotless house watching "educational" TV.
This is a hard-hitting novel about teenagers growing up in a North of England industrial city depressed by unemployment and poverty. Many of their concerns and experiences will be familiar to American readers; some will be quite new. Like the local soccer team, and against the odds, Debbie and Brian are doing the best they can to stay up.
"It is about parental culture and youthful anarchy, school versus sex and soccer, a prissy girl's involvement with a wild boy...splendid." -- The Guardian (London)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-12 Although this novel is very British, it has many elements which could make it popular with teens. Life is difficult for the blue-collar family of 15-year-old Brian. Their small house must accommodate seven people when Brian's older sister moves back home with her illegitimate baby, and then Mr. Gower loses his job. Brian tries his luck at joining the ``Ointment,'' a gang of rowdy teenage football fans, yet he dis likes himself for throwing a rock at a car to impress them. Teens will under stand most of these problems, and they will empathize with Brian as he tries to cope. To add suspense, there's Roys ton Ambler, a rich boy turned bad, who rapes and murders young girls, and who is reminiscent of a character in Richard Peck's Are You in the House Alone? (Viking, 1976), but Peck explores the problem more fully and with greater suspense. In an exciting but slightly un believable ending, Brian's girlfriend Debbie narrowly escapes rape and mur der when she accepts a ride with Am bler, and Brian nearly dies when he falls off the football stands and cracks his head. If Brian's fall is seen as pun ishment for his selfish devotion to sport, that's a rather trite retribution. There's a lot of plot action here, almost more than this brief book can stand, as Swindells switches point of view from Brian to Debbie to omniscient observer in some very brief chapters. The dia logue does enhance character realism, especially with Brian, but the greatest reading obstacle for American teens will be the British slang and cockney dialect. Phyllis Graves, Creekwood Middle School, Kingwood, Tex.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Robert Swindells is author of the award-winning novel Brother in the Land and has just finished his first picture book for children. He lives in West Yorkshire, England.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 26, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192715461
• ISBN-13: 978-0192715463
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,004,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Swindells left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer.
RUBY TANYA won the Salford Children's Book Award 2005.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Coming of age novel filled with suspense, February 14, 2005

By 

Geert Daelemans (Leuven Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Staying Up (Hardcover)

Brian Gower is a 15-year old supporter of Barfax Town. He would love to become a member of "The Ointment," a gang of violent teenage football fans. Debbie hates football, but really likes being with Brian. When Brian is asked to choose between his girlfriend and a game out of town, he chooses for his football friends. Debbie decides to split up with Brian, something her parents are really in favor of: Brian is a no good boy who will only get their daughter in a lot of trouble. But maybe Brian is not that bad after all, and maybe Debbie has taken a decision that could mean the end to both their lives. Barfax, indeed is a town with more than one sinister secret, and it becomes time that evil shows its real face.

With the youth novel Staying Up the highly acclaimed Robert Swindells has created a coming of age novel that embraces a strong adult morality. It all starts with a very direct analysis of a relationship going bad between two teenagers. Both really depend on each other, but are sadly enough unaware of how to share these feelings. Throughout the first chapters Swindells draws a dark and often depressing picture of the lives and surroundings of two lead characters surviving in times of predominant economic depression. But then the story changes pace and becomes a nerve-wracking thriller in which life and death become central topics of suspense. Revealing what happens next would ruin the experience of this superbly plotted novel. Certainly the second half of the book is a real treat, even for those people who have already passed the milestone of adolescence with a few or more years.