Dystopia in the valleys

Set during the social and sexual revolution of the 1960s, this is the rites-of passage story of two girls' attempts to break out of the conformity of a working-class Welsh community.

Looking back in anger, Mara narrates the story of a childhood spent with her charismatic cousin Frankie, seduced by her own rebellion into self-destruction.

In a commune characterised by mind-games and peergroup conformity, Frankie's fragile sense of self implodes.

Painting in varying shades of darkness with language of corrosive power, Davies turns the colourful, 1960s dream of a blissed-out, hippy Utopia on its head to depict a nightmarish countercultural dystopia.

Kith & Kin by Stevie Davies
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £12.99