Anthony McGowan (2025 [2011]) The Fall.

Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize, The Fall was reissued in 2025. I got this book for my favourite girl in the world. But her dad read a bit. And that was that. Said there was a death on the first few pages. It would remain unread. That was my failing. My fall.

‘Is that Mog?’ he said. Nobody had called me Mog since I was at school.   ‘Have you heard?’

‘Heard what?’ I said.

‘Rush.’

‘Chris Rush?’

‘Yeah…’

‘He’s dead.’

Chapter 1 begin with a question, why was Chris Rush dead? And what’s it got to do with the narrator, Mog?

The answer is in the opening chapter of eight (the whole book is around 2000 words) title: ‘School’.

School was the crucible that made and unmade them. ‘Corpus Christi High School.’

‘The kids were mental. Even the teachers were mental.’

There’s lots here adolescents will recognise about mental health and bullying. Even the bullies at Corpus Christi get bullied.

Kids got on with it. Created islands of sanity. Mog hitched up with Chris Rush. They clicked. Got each other’s jokes. Needled each other. Were best mates.

Chris’s brother was a nutter. He had a crossbow, which was the equivalent of having a gun, before guns became more available.

Chris’s problem was he was hard, when he had to be, but he was too soft. He cared too much about losers like Duffy.

Mog’s fall was he became a bully too. So he and Chris could go back to being the way they were.

Anton Chekhov’s dictum about a loaded gun being like a twisted promise is part of the plot and a denouement that makes sense to young and old. Read on.     

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