The narrative is spilt four ways, with alternating chapters from each of the protagonists perspectives. It is a brilliant device and Hird uses it masterfully, her ear for pitch-perfect dialogue and her sensitivity towards the disparate character-types ensures that the reader is grabbed by the collar and dragged into the sometimes sordid, bittersweet milieu of their collective life.

The patriarch Vic is a bus driver. His use of Prozac has left him impotent and he is treated with equal disdain by all other members of the family. The most decent and likeable of the lot, he is the clearly the glue which holds the family together. Just about however.

His alcoholic wife Angie works in a bookie office and fancies her boss. When she gets the offer to go for a drink with him she is off. Off the wagon and off into a whirlwind adulterous relationship for which she cannot wait to undertake. As the booze takes hold of her, once again, she reverts to an increasingly selfish, pathetic creature.

With parents like these, it’s little wonder the children are fucked up. But it is a fucked-up-ness which is common in many adolescents. Part of the deal in fact. Joni is fifteen. As her sixteenth birthday approaches, all she can think about is losing her virginity before it happens. This is spurred on by the fact that her pretty best friend carries an air of sexual knowing which Joni envies and wants for herself. As Joni shoplifts clothes, gets drunk and stoned and embarks on her sexual awakening, her naïve innocence becomes increasingly heartbreaking.

Her young brother Jake faces the dread of continuous bullying at school. His days are filled with computer games and an intense regime of masturbation. He befriends new neighbour Sean and immediately envies and wants the kind of homelife Sean has, where family members are civilised to each other and seem to live in a cosy cocoon Jake can only dream of.

Of the four, it is Angie who wreaks most havoc on the domestic ‘bliss’ they ‘enjoy’, her spiralling alcoholism and increasing affair lead to a disastrous denouement. All the while the kids are going through hellish experiences themselves which she merely compounds.

As each take turns to give their version of events – each with their own travails to the fore – the interweaving picture which emerges is bleak, sad and incredibly real. Hird gets inside the heads of the teenage characters brilliantly and evokes the kind of awful experience adolescence can be, with the constant self-conscious fear of humiliation and the cruelty of peers. Joni tells us about her sweaty bum, her periods and her own masturbatory adventures, while Jake – a brilliant creation – expresses the kind of nihilistic fear teenage boys go through, in between wanking and playing computer games.

Alcohol plays a huge part in the book. Angie’s alcoholism obviously is integral, but also in the life of Joni. She and her friends drink cider at the local graveyard. They go to pubs and get drunk and get attached by drunken yobs. She robs money from her parents – hidden under the mattress of their bed in envelopes marked ‘Gas’, ‘Holiday’ etc. – to spend on drink. Vic’s idea of a good night is a few cans in front of the telly, but it is a rare occurrence for him. The sexual politics of Born Free is – just as in real life – complex and continuously shifting. The female half of the family are intent on belittling and humiliating the male side. Yet when they are out in the world, they are flirtatious and humble among other men. Angie is by far, the most destructive element on show and it is her which evinces the least sympathy from the reader. Long suffering Vic is a good man, a good husband and a good father. It is difficult to be all those things, however, in the circumstances he finds himself in. With a family bubbling over with antipathy for each other, he is merely a joke.

‘Born Free’ develops at a brilliant and gripping pace. As events occur, things are approaching an unavoidable crescendo. The pages are spattered with gritty real-life, with violence, hatred, disillusionment and despair. The sectarian divide and the class struggle are apparent too.

Despite the sadness, ‘Born Free’ is thoroughly enjoyable and there is much humour in it. The humour is of the type which brightens the bleakest of crevices and makes the words all the more real for it.

The colourful Scottish language is pure poetry at times and the narrative sizzles with the electrified life of truly great fiction.

Sean Walsh lives with his wife and two children near the town Killala in Co. Mayo. As a music and arts writer his work has appeared in publications such as artswest, CAFE News, Céide Review, magpie magazine, Hot Press and Irish Music magazine. He is also currently film critic with the Connaught Telegraph newspaper. After dropping out of college while studying Philosophy, he blagged his way into working in arts administration, which he still does. Currently completing an Open University Hons Degree in Humanities (one more module to go), he hopes to get down to serious writing soon.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.