Locks - Hardcover

by Ashleigh Nugent (Author)

'A rollocking debut' Telegraph

'A necessary exploration of identity and belonging' Derek Owusu, author of That Reminds Me

Aeon, a mixed-up and mixed-race teenager from a leafy Liverpool suburb, is desperate to find his Black roots. He needs to understand the Black identity foisted upon him by his friends and 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 father, a Yardie gangster.

Aeon's ambition to find his place in the world - to make something happen - seems set to be fulfilled when he and Increase travel to Jamaica. But in Jamaica, Aeon soon finds that smoking loads of weed, growing messy dreadlocks and wearing massive red boots don't, necessarily, help him to fit in. Aeon soon lands himself in trouble. He is mugged, stabbed, arrested and banged up in a Jamaican detention centre. There, he is beaten unconscious for being the 'White boy'. And then things really start to go wrong. Aeon's journey of self-discovery has only just begun . . .