Life! Death! Prizes!

Life! Death! Prizes!
by Stephen May
Bloomsbury (e-book)

Life! Death! Prizes! deserves an award for one of the best titles of the year. The second novel by British fiction and screenplay writer Stephen May, it deserves other awards too. It begins with an ending: a funeral for Suzanne, the mother of our narrator, 19-year-old Billy. Here is Billy in full, sardonic flight: 'Mum's funeral takes place at the Millennium Crematorium, a pale brick square that stands cringing in the shadowof the Fun Junction on the edge of town.' Suzanne's death during a mugging leaves Billy in sole charge of his six-year-old step-brother, Oscar - effectively making the older sibling a single parent. Billy and Oscar adapt to life as one fears young men might: eating badly, sleeping worse and existing on a diet of computer games, movies and the 'true story' magazines that inspired that brilliant title. But the grim surface betrays a profound relationship between the two boys. Billy mixes work, studying and a growing obsession with his mother's 'murderer', but all the while cares for Oscar, who loves Billy right back with heart-breaking simplicity. Already compared to Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, it deserves these plaudits and then some.