Well Below Average
By Anthony Thorley

Gavin is an ordinary young boy growing up on a 1950s slum-clearance estate development on the fringe of industrial Tyneside. Although a challenge for his parents, an underachiever at school and socially unacceptable to his peers, he nonetheless carries his own personal mystery and through him we experience a fascinating perspective into a uniquely rich world which gradually takes on a whole life of its own. This disturbing and starkly honest novel makes no attempt to get inside Gavin’s head but traces his troubled life through a series of closely-observed episodes and gritty advent-ures that lead to the mordant climax of his adolescent destiny.

“This is an extraordinary and enlightening book, and especially so for having been written by an eighteen-year-old. Wonderfully descriptive and evocative of the physical, emotional and spiritual poverty of a housing estate in the North-East in the early 1960s, the story shows how tragically and easily under-privileged children can slip through the cracks and deteriorate during the years in which they should be flourishing. Thorley’s perception of human nature is deep and penetrating, and this book could rightly take its place on courses in sociology, education and psychology, as well as being a very good novel in its own right.”
Lara Owen, author of Her Blood Is Gold and Growing Your Inner Light.

“I am shattered. When I read this it is like I am watching a film; it is very emotionally immediate. I am overcome by your powers of observation. Because you make his experiences so real, I live that little boy’s life and he is still with me. Your writing is deeply beautiful in a painful sort of way. What a clever young thing you were! Way, way above average!”
Chrissy Philp, author of One Way of Looking at Man and The Golden City.
“This remarkable first hand account of growing up on Tyneside in the 50s vividly recalls the inner and outer squalor of that dying industrial era. Unusual and haunting, it is an impressive achievement for an eighteen-year-old. I loved it, especially the dialogue, which expresses both dark humour and the pressure to conform. From 2009, it is like looking back at a past age, but this book makes it all amazingly real again.”
Derek A Brown, North-Easterner by adoption and choice

“A subtle and interesting book. I found it gripping from the beginning and couldn’t put it down. It is at once an evocation of a time that is past, the 1950s and 60s, and a clever weaving of events that recur and echo each other. The milk monitors and the staff room at school, and the coal miners, and the enduring sameness of the human race from the Bronze Age to the future. The same bullies, sex-driven adolescents, husbands and wives who don’t understand each other, fire-fighters confronting the public fascinated by disaster, the tricked law enforcement officers – in this marvellous book, all are there. Beautifully written, it is a meticulous observation of the human condition occasionally jewelled by soaring descriptions of nature, as though pointing out that human nature is capable of great beauty – as well as bewilderment and cruelty. It’s so moving that the last chapter was almost too painful to read.”
Moyra Caldecott, author of Etheldreda, Guardians of the Tall Stones and Akhenaten: Son of the Sun

“Well Below Average is one of the few works of fiction I picked up and couldn’t put down until I’d read it cover to cover. Thorley’s narrative had me immediately engulfed in Gavin’s world, with vivid descriptions of the stark reality of lower class Britain in the 1950s. Reminiscent of the compelling observational style of the realist film director Ken Loach, this is a truly fascinating glimpse into the bleak yet subtly rich world of disadvantaged young people.”
Sivan Bar-Sever, registered midwife, mother, film buff and self- taught photographer