Locks

'A rollicking debut' - Telegraph 'A necessary exploration of identity and belonging' - Derek Owusu, author of That Reminds Me In Ashleigh Nugent's dynamic coming-of-age comedy of errors, Locks, teenager Aeon is on a quest for belonging. Locks is the story of Aeon, a mixed-up and mixed-race teenager from a leafy Liverpool suburb, who is desperate to find his Black roots and understand the Black identity foisted upon him by his community. To his growing shame, the only Black people in his life are his dad and his cousin, Increase - but they don't count. Aeon's dad is intent on ignoring race and climbing the social ladder. And Increase has taken to demeaning all Black culture since the shady and unresolved death of his own father, a 'Yardie' gangster. Aeon's quest seems set to be fulfilled when he and Increase travel to Jamaica. But Aeon soon finds that smoking loads of weed, growing messy dreadlocks and wearing massive red boots don't, necessarily, help him to fit in. He gets mugged, stabbed, arrested and banged up in a Jamaican detention centre, where he is beaten unconscious for being the 'White boy'. And then things really start to go wrong . . .

About the Author :
Ashleigh Nugent was Liverpool City Region's Artist of the Year in 2022. He has been published in academic journals, poetry anthologies and magazines. His debut novel, Locks, is based on the time he spent his seventeenth birthday in a Jamaican detention centre. Nugent has written for the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and Live Theatre, Newcastle. He is now a special advisor at the Shakespeare North Playhouse, a theatre built on the site where he had his first pint aged fourteen, facing the place he was first locked up by racist police, built on the car park where he was once threatened with an axe. Nugent is also a director at RiseUp, where he uses his own life experience to support prisoners and inspire change. Locks is his first book.

Review :
A search for meaning and the complicated expression of multiple cultures. Ashleigh is a born storyteller, able to blend humour and introspection, poetry and the poignant. Immersive storytelling . . . compelling, lyrical, wise, insightful and extremely funny. I loved Locks. It’s a twisty, energetic, voice-led novel, written with humour and skill and drama . . . Like Virginia Woolf but from the ends. Nugent is pure talent, something else. Thought-provoking and funny . . . perfectly captures the sense of being between two cultures, whilst never feeling fully part of either . . . full of larger-than-life characters who jump off the page. Irreverent, authentic and utterly enthralling. A wonderful book. An adventure story like no other . . . Nugent has a fine talent for storytelling, but also for capturing truth. Locks is both funny, and psychologically astute, and really captures the nuanced dynamic between boys pushed to their emotional and physical limits through hardship and misunderstanding.