Simon Kitchener

Amos, In Three Acts Simon Kitchener

This novel, made up of three books, is aimed at perhaps the most reluctant reader group, the middle teenager. It is about a fifteen-year-old boy, Amos, dealing with events surrounding school-life. Amos is a bright, popular, well-adjusted boy who struggles with the pressure placed upon him to conform. This pressure comes from school, his peers and to a lesser degree, his father. The first book is about what Amos and his friends do over the course of a few weeks, culminating in a party where a boy is tragically killed. The language is as close to real as the writer has heard. Some might baulk at the liberal use of the f-word and how fifteen year-olds speak, others may take issue with admitting these boys take drugs, use racist language, have sex and get into fights. These subjects are dealt with matter-of-factly, by the teenagers. The conclusions they derive are quite grown-up. Throughout, Amos and his friends smoke marijuana. This brings them together and breaks them apart. He attends an all-boys grammar school where this indulgence is regarded as errant and dangerous. But this is not why Amos finds himself in trouble. His biggest problem is he is a non-conformist.