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The Young Team: Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2023

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Azzy Williams,” A say, aw confidence.’ We love to welcome fresh, new voices to Scotland’s literary scene here at BooksfromScotland, and we’re excited to read Graeme Armstrong’s debut novel, The Young Team. We hope this little taster will have you rushing to the bookshops! Our conversation comes full circle as Armstrong contemplates how his school days shaped his future, Trainspotting aside. “When I started telling teachers I was going to study English at university it was met with healthy scepticism. One teacher said there was too much reading for someone like me and another told me to just leave school. But I hung on.” Graeme joined the “hated but rated” local gang Lang El Toi and rose through the ranks, continuing down the same troubled path that led to his expulsion from his previous school.

TV - The Young Team - The DreamCage TV - The Young Team - The DreamCage

I started getting angry and playing the blame game – but I had only myself to blame. So I said to myself, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Though obviously influenced from Welsh's Trainspotting, the novel is a literary beast standing on its own two feet. Set in the Lanarkshire housung schemes and centred around Azzy Williams, the narrator and a member of The Young Team, he draws you in and you have no way of escaping. He laughed and told me ‘You’re going to be popular here. You’ve gone from the frying pan into the fire.’ I just laughed and shrugged. I didn’t realise Coatbridge was much more violent than Airdrie." Azzy Williams is my brother. He’s not, really, I know that - he’s a fictional character. But reading this book, I can’t help but project my own experiences growing up being reflected in this book, more so than anything else I’ve read. Sure, many books capture facets of my personality. But they’ve never captured my youth, nor my brothers. I was never a young team kid, though. That was my brother, and, before him, my father. I felt safer living my life inside, away from people. My brother instead was like a tree: his roots were deeply set. He just needed to spread them. We made quite the pair, him the wee ned, me the wee emo.Azzy Williams makes better choices. We’re with Azzy as he grows. As his mental health worsens, Azzy seeks help. He gets a pamphlet. There’s a surprise, said no one ever who’s ever tried to access support for their mental health here. Azzy tries his best. He’s an opportunist, for the good and the bad. His register changes. You talk a bit more proper, or as my cousin told me once: “ye sound lit a fanny”. It happens, the more you get away from your upbringing and the more you feel you have to prove your intelligence, prove to others you’re more than just a kid from the schemes. Azzy encounters folk like that. He knows.

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong | Goodreads

There are a lot of really interesting insights into classism in Scotland and Graeme emphasises that the people in this situation are no less intelligent than anyone else, even though people treat them like they are. They just haven’t had the chance at life, or the tools to give them the chance at life, that other people have. They have to fight to get out of a dead-end life. They’re more likely to be inspired by London gang culture nowadays, he said, listening to "drill and grime" music instead of happy hardcore. They carry iPhones and have more money. They dress differently. Yes, our main man Alan 'Azzy' Williams is in a gang but the story is more about his personal journey. His gang, The Young Team, are his brothers and he will do, and frequently does do, anything for them. These guys pull each other out of some truly awful circumstances and have a bond forged initially through drink, drugs, gangs and raves. We wander up the lane, buzzin wae the Friday Feelin, a force wae almost supernatural powers. It’s obvious that last week is on everywan’s mind. This Friday we’re gonnae join the actual troops instead ae our wee mad squad up the Mansion. We wurnae oblivious tae the main gathering’s existence before. On Friday nights before we tended tae just say ‘awright’ tae them n go on our way. It wisnae an official thing, yir just fae that area n know them aw fae school. Then yi come ae age n it’s accepted that yi hang aboot wae them n become a YT wan, oot gittin a smoke durin the week n on-it at the weekend wae the troops n the tidy burds who hang aboot anaw.The Young Team is so much more than a story. To me it’s a guide on how to grow up and (hopefully) survive in a run down Scottish town left to rot by the powers that be; along with the young men who never stood a chance. The forgotten generation with nothing to do but drink, take drugs, fight and shag- constantly looking for that high, that euphoria, happiness.

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong | Waterstones

The TV adaptation of Armstrong’s Times-bestselling and Waterstone’s Book of the Month novel will follow Azzy during three crucial years of his life, looking at the world through his eyes as he navigates Scottish masculinity, gang violence, substance abuse, mental health, male suicide and murder. Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire's gang culture. He was inspired to study English Literature following his reading of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting at just sixteen. Alongside overcoming his own struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he defied expectation to read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where, after graduating with honours, he returned to study a Masters' in Creative Writing. Ah never say never n aw that!’ A say, wae Monica catchin ma eye. She looks doon ever so slightly, n gees us this mad look. Armstrong encapsulates all of this perfectly. The mentality, the social insistence, the substances, the violence. He describes everything to the point of near nostalgia, yet adds explanations and added pressure which we never would have guessed our boys to be suffering; but, of course, they must have been. The drive of masculine conformity is a strong one, and dangerously precarious.I was engrossed from start to finish. Graeme Armstrong is a major new talent and I cannot wait to discover what he does next.

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