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The Young Team: Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2023

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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. I got both the audiobook read by Graeme Armstrong, and a physical copy too. Both are wonderful experiences. Hearing the Lanarkshire accent creates another level of immersion. Either medium is great, combined though is unbeatable. Graeme failed the first sitting of his Higher English exam due to being hungover in fifth year after watching a Rangers game (“I was gutted that I’d proven them right,” he admits). After that, he threw himself into his studies, reading on his lunch breaks and studying after school and hanging out with the gang at the weekend. He achieved an A and got into Stirling University. Trainspotting comparisons are inevitable, as it is written in dialect, set in Scotland and features the drug scene and culture. In both books the overall narrative is about escaping the lower class schemes, escaping the hold drugs have on you, and growing up. But Welsh's Leith in the '90s and Armstrong's Lanarkshire in mid 2000's are different propositions. 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?’

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong - Pan Macmillan

This TV adaptation of Graeme Armstrong’s novel will follow Azzy during three crucial years of his life. It will view the world through his eyes as he navigates Scottish masculinity, gang violence, substance abuse, mental health, male suicide and murder. Transitioning from adolescence into manhood, Azzy faces the biggest battle of all – the fight for a different future. In 2021, Graeme presented ‘SCOTLAND THE RAVE’, a BBC documentary exploring Scotland’s rave and PCDJ culture, which was subsequently nominated for a BAFTA Scotland and RTS Scotland Award 2022. Most recently, he wrote and presented ‘STREET GANGS’, a BBC factual series exploring modern Scottish gang culture, drill music and his own past. 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. Little Door Books was officially launched as an independent publisher in 2016. We work collaboratively with established and emerging authors and illustrators, offering them greater input in the creation of their high-quality, exciting, and ultimately b …But also, some truly excellent patter. Amidst the hostility and heartache, I was honestly pishing myself at some of the patter, you can really hear people delivering slaggings in your head with devastating accuracy and familiarity. 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.

The Young Team - Books from Scotland The Young Team - Books from Scotland

Having recently read, and been blown away by Who They Was (2020) by Gabriel Krauze, along comes another teenage gang inspired masterpiece also published in 2020. He continued: “I went from three drafts of 235,000 words to one book with 110,000. There are still bits I would change to this day, like any artist. But you need to learn to let that go to grow.”But are the young teams as much of a thing today? Graeme said they’ve not gone away: They just wear a different guise. 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.

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