2019
Kel Crew has lived in the swamps all of her life up until now. More fortunate folk live in the Towers. Kel has a plan: kidnap a Towers girl, ransom her for drugs and sell those to pay for a life-saving operation that she needs. She sets off taking her baby with her. She refers to him as “it” at first. We trace her development as the baby gradually becomes ‘he’, gains a personality and eventually a name. She seems at first not to care for him but we note that she is constantly checking that he is still breathing.
Kel Crew has lived in the swamps all of her life up until now. More fortunate folk live in the Towers. Kel has a plan: kidnap a Towers girl, ransom her for drugs and sell those to pay for a life-saving operation that she needs. She sets off taking her baby with her. She refers to him as “it” at first. We trace her development as the baby gradually becomes ‘he’, gains a personality and eventually a name. She seems at first not to care for him but we note that she is constantly checking that he is still breathing.
Her
relationship with Rose the girl she captures, with the ocean and with life in
general is complex. There is no happily ever after in this story and that is of
course quite right in a novel written for young adults. There is however a form
of survival.
Natasha
Carthew brings us some delightfully refreshing prose: “It was a stupid baby, if
it wasn’t it would have put its fist to its mouth and left it there for
gumming” (30), “She stepped into the shadows of the low-slung nothing-much sun”
(46), “She stood at the door and tried every crack and corner for looking and
when she heard footsteps scuffing the stairs down to her she sat backed up on
the ground and waited” (134).
It’s
difficult to like Kel but Rose’s privilege, her growing fondness for the baby
and the demanding trials mainly on the ocean that the two girls face make us
more sympathetic towards her.
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