posted on 09 Mar 2016

Raining Fire by Alan Gibbons

Another belting story from Alan Gibbons – full of action, tension and power but intelligent and thought-provoking at the same time. In this 2013 outing Gibbons takes us into the world of housing estates, gangs and remorseless poverty and tries to get us all to think about how the lives of so many of our young people from working class backgrounds are being blighted and twisted by a social and economic system that chews them up and spits them out.

There is a danger that we become cynical and weary of the issues Gibbons thrusts under our noses -  you can almost hear the Daily Mail readers fulminating:  ‘Not another book about gangs! That’s so last year. Move on – get over it. If these young people just took some personal responsibility we wouldn’t have these problems. A spell in the army would sort them out…..”    

So it’s to the authors eternal credit that he wants to understand rather than judge the young people who find themselves drawn into a cycle of crime, violence, gangs and gun culture. Their choices are limited and their routes out of that world fragile. At the centre of this book is Ethan, who is just doing his GCSEs, and his older brother Alex. They live with their mother, Terri, a feisty woman who has made bad relationship choices and who has to deal with the father of the boys who comes and goes as he pleases and who is brutal and violent when the mood takes him. They all live on The Green, an estate run and fought over by two gangs whose turf war escalates alarmingly as the story develops.

The key point of view in the book is Ethan who wants to become a footballer but, we discover later, is also pretty strong academically. Ethan finds himself drawn into gangland because of his older brothers involvement and when his dream of becoming a famous footballer is shattered his world becomes bleak and enclosed, seemingly drawing him into an inevitable showdown with one gang or another.

Ethan is both terrified and transfixed by the idea of the rule of the gun. He has seen that the gangs are tooled up and Gibbons tells us very early on in the story that Ethan’s destiny is somehow entwined with guns – which creates a sense of fatality and momentum in the story as we wait to see how the handgun and Ethan will eventually meet up.

I’m not going to spoil the book for those who haven’t read it by revealing how all this plays out but it’s fair to say that Gibbons gives us a hopeful ending which suggests that even the world of gang honour is susceptible to acts of basic decency and simple acts of humanity. Also important to the story is the love interest that develops between Ethan and his girlfriend, Abi. In many ways the salvation denied to Ethan by his football injury is compensated by his unexpected surge of feeling for a girl who shows him sensitivity and loyalty and who – like the author – also refuses to stereotype and condemn.

There will be those who will say that this kind of subject matter is too graphic or sensationalist for the teenage market and that these issues, if they are appropriate at all for such readers, should always be couched in the most didactic and moralist terms. Just say no to drugs and guns and gangs. But as an ex-teacher  Gibbons knows  this is just not a realistic response and that empathy is a more important quality than priggish moralising. I think that those who argue that the characters are unrealistic or the circumstances melodramatic  fail to understand that books like this are a new kind of folk tale where realism and fidelity to character development are really secondary to the need to provide a catalyst for society – and especially young people themselves - to discuss issues that otherwise get locked away or swept under the carpet. Authenticity is not something that just comes from accurately monitoring and reflecting reality but also from creating a recognisable environment that provides  young people with a safe space to explore dangerous issues. Gibbons does that and should be praised for doing so.

Terry Potter

March 2016