Nick’s Blues by John Harvey

Description

A young adult fiction novel giving a snapshot of the life of a teenager, Nick Harman, growing up on a north London housing estate

Four days after Nick Harman’s seventh birthday, his father climbed onto a bridge high above four lanes of traffic, paused, then threw himself to his death on the road below. On his sixteenth birthday, his mother gives him a box of things left by his father all those years ago. The contents lead Nick to try and discover what led his father from being a successful blues singer to the point where he took his own life.

Against a background of shifting allegiances, involving both the violent gangs on the estate and his first serious involvement with a girl, Nick is forced to come to terms, not only with who his father was but who he is himself.  220pp