Ten Storey Love Song

Ten Storey Love Song nicely interweaves amongst the tenants of a rough council block in Middlesborough. Bobby the Artist is an idiot savant, great with paints and hippyish in his pursuit of hedonism. He loves Georgie, a drunk working girl who doesn't see why anyone would go on the dole when it's easy to earn minimum wage in a rubbish job. Johnnie, the local dealer, is a violent and jealous sweetheart with a soft spot for his gran and for out-of-his-league girlfriend Ellen. Meanwhile, Alan Blunt  is a BNP supporter clambering his way towards a much-needed race war, one headline at a time.

All these wonderfully colourful characters intersect in the busy traffic of a council estate block, all desperate and alone and needing human interaction, wanting to make it and for everyone to make it, and in their dysfunction, they seem to form the perfect model family of down-and-outers. There are some raucous laugh-out-loud moments and moments of real pathos, sadness and melancholy, as well as blissed-out off your face hedonism.

Richard Milward has the makings of a brilliant author, and at his young age has said more for Britain's working classes than many of his writing peers. If you can spin your head past the concrete slab of text, underneath lies a book thick with hilarity, nuance and complete filth.