Bright Young Things: Fireball

Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and first came to the U.K. in 1999. Since then, he has received several awards for his short fiction and filmmaking. His stories have been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including Interzone, On Spec, New Welsh Review, and Planet: The Welsh Internationalist. He lives in mid-Wales with his wife, Naomi. Fireball is his first novel.tyler@brightyoungthings.info

‘Totally awesome.’ This was the draft review I sent in to my editor. She asked me to add a few more words.So. Think Meursault and Holden Caulfield, and perhaps a touch of James Dean, and then add Chris to the list of young male outsiders who step off the page or screen so vividly they remain immortalised in a corner of your mind, their image instantly recalled by a word or a turn of phrase. ‘Harsh’, ‘sweet’ and ‘awesome’ are words I shall now always associate with Tyler Keevil’s brilliant debut novel, narrated in the perfectly sustained voice of modern male youth culture.Unlike Meursault and Holden, Chris isn’t around to tell his own story. And he wouldn’t tell it even if he were. The task is left to his long-time best friend, Razor, who is probably not guaranteed to be the most reliable narrator, but then somebody has to tell Chris’s side of things. Adults are inclined to attach easy labels and conjure up neat narratives of cause and effect. It’s a learned survival mechanism. It makes the world an easier place to live. But a teenager’s world is infinitely more complex and difficult to navigate and, as Razor says, ‘going from start to finish isn’t the only way to tell a story.’ Tyler’s intricate narrative reflects Razor’s vision, deftly shifting from scene to scene to reveal the unfolding of events one searingly hot summer in Vancouver, when the lifelong loyalties of three young men are put to the test by the presence of the gorgeous Karen. The neat adult label? Another male rite-of-passage story? Maybe. But it’s the first time for ages that I’ve experienced the delicious contradiction of not wanting to put a book down, but not wanting it to end either. I love teenagers, and Keevil does them proud. They need some champions right now.