Newly escaped from God’s Pilgrims, an ultra-conservative sect on the outskirts of London, 17-year-old Rose takes the business of “decommissioning” seriously – so seriously that she has a list to tick off, including “dress immodestly”, “act immodestly” and “beget immodesty with worldly boyfriend”. Last on the list is a critical item – ensuring that Rudder, her younger brother, is “completely, utterly and finally” decommissioned, too. But while Rose acclimatises rapidly to life outside the Woodford Sanctuary, happily swapping long, confining skirts for makeup and mobile phones, it’s harder for Rudder, who misses his father and the friends they left behind, and is desperately afraid he’ll be condemned to hell. He and Rose share a room above a kebab shop – a dump their mother can barely afford, despite working all hours – and though the scars on his hands are a reminder of the repressive life he has left, he still wants to go back to the order he knows, and the people he loves. Not even his beloved Harry Potter books and robes are enough to reconcile him to life on the outside.
When Rose lets Kye, her bad-boy boyfriend, take a revealing picture of her, and when Rudder makes an instinctive, naive choice with far-reaching consequences, the siblings’ deep vulnerability and lack of experience are exposed – along with their strength, and willingness to make great sacrifices for each other.
Compared with Orangeboy, her award-winning debut, Lawrence’s third novel is more interested in the incremental action of day-to-day life than fast-moving plot. Part of her considerable gift, though, is her ability to examine the pitfalls of everyday existence in a way that feels completely absorbing. She conveys the draining, exhausting sense of counting every penny and stretching every pound, the confining cage of working poverty, while simultaneously evoking Rose’s uncertain but delighted exploration of her new freedom. Her richly empathetic portrayals of the siblings, their fears and struggles – with bullying, school etiquette, the swampy territory of the internet and male ownership of female bodies – combine in an enthralling, resonant, unusual and thought-provoking novel.
• Rose, Interrupted by Patrice Lawrence is published by Hodder (RRP £7.99) To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
