Gritty, erotic and emotionally intense, Falconer's second novel (after Primrose Hill
) is split between ground-dwellers (rich Londoners in Victorian terraced houses) and sky-high people (tower block estate dwellers). Fifteen-year-old Ferdia, nominally a ground-dweller but immersed in tower block life, is tormented by the behavior of his vain actor father and immature mother, both of whom are involved with kids half their ages. His parents' fumbling gyrations enrage and embarrass him, but are mere preamble for a plot-twisting irony, Ferdia's own affair with a female teacher, who seduces him into a hapless sexual relationship. At 33, Cassandra is more than twice Ferdia's age, and her domineering manner and sexual appetite make his head spin. Meanwhile, his best mate, Matt, who writes inspired punk lyrics for their tower block band, is spiraling downwards, threatening to make his trademark song come true ("Hey, you on the ground, watch out for the hungry poor! Gonna squash you flat when we jump from the twentieth floor!"). Ferdia's difficult idyll finds its ecstasy in bedrooms, taxicabs and backyards, but it is not a situation that can long remain secret. Word gets out, to friends and, inevitably, to newspapers. The results are calamitous, especially after a particularly damaging piece of news becomes public, but the true tragedy is Matt's sad fate. Falconer has no moral to preach, and her story is blackly humorous, as real as the familiar newspaper headlines inspiring it, whether in this sordid and impossible corner of London or elsewhere. (Nov.)
