Escape and survival prove fruitful themes in settings from Tennessee,Alaska and Australia to Nazi-occupied PolandThe final summer at the end of schooldays is a tense time for friendships and self-confidence. The great divide appears between those who see glittering prizes within their reach and their friends whose choices appear fewer. At a time when many young adults’ choices are narrowing because of the cost of higher education and housing, there seems to be a trend for fiction that plays with the competing influences of domestic and away.
The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner (Andersen Press, and £7.99) is a richly textured tale set in small-town Tennessee where the sins of Dill’s father,a disgraced and imprisoned evangelist minister, are visited relentlessly upon his son. Dill and his mother are social pariahs living in poverty, and while Dills friend Lydia,a fashion blogger heading for New York after tall school, considers him a project. The gulf between their likely futures is the pink elephant in the back seat of Lydia’s car, and which shelters Dill and the equally unlucky Travis from the storms brewed by their elders. The universal highs,lows and power shifts in friendship are played out by three compelling characters until tragedy brings loyalty to the fore.
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Source: theguardian.com