Name: Who They Was
ISBN: 9780008375010

Gabriel Krauze

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 A Spectator Book of the Year ‘A literary rendering of the Top Boy generation... I cannot conjure another work which captures this culture in such depth – or with such brutal honesty – as only lived experience can tell ’ Graeme Armstrong, author of The Young Team

Who They Was

The unforgettable narrator goes by two names in his two worlds. At university, he's Gabriel, a seemingly ordinary, partying student learning about morality at a distance. But in his life outside the classroom, he's Snoopz, a hard living member of London's gangs, well-acquainted with drugs, guns, stabbings, and robbery. Navigating these sides of himself, dealing with loving parents at the same time as treacherous, endangering friends and the looming threat of prison, he is forced to come to terms with who he really is and the life he's chosen for himself.

One of the most page-turning books I have read in a while. I like the immersion in a voice you don't often hear in novels and how generally the author did not try to excuse or justify the character's behaviour. Few downsides: tone a bit mixed at points, central narrative becomes a little repetitive, and overused metaphors describing the nighttime, but maybe that is in-keeping with the character's voice. I'm 50-50 on the ending also: I like how it just petered out, but can't help wanting a little more drama or comeuppance.  

Luke Pearce

Peppe Sollerman 

James Ewen

Danai koftori

'A literary rendering of the Top Boy generation... I cannot conjure another work which captures this culture in such depth - or with such brutal honesty - as only lived experience can tell ' Graeme Armstrong, author of The Young Team 'An astonishingly powerful book' Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love This life is like being in an ocean. Some people keep swimming towards the bottom. Some people touch the bottom with one foot, or even both, and then push themselves off it to get back up to the top, where you can breathe. Others get to the bottom and decide they want to stay there. I don't want to get to the bottom because I'm already drowning. This is a story of a London you won't find in any guidebooks. This is a story about what it's like to exist in the moment, about boys too eager to become men, growing up in the hidden war zones of big cities - and the girls trying to make it their own way. This is a story of reputations made and lost, of violence and vengeance - and never counting the cost. This is a story of concrete towers and blank eyed windows, of endless nights in police stations and prison cells, of brotherhood and betrayal. This is about the boredom, the rush, the despair, the fear and the hope. This is about what's left behind.

Who They Was

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