Life! Death! Prizes!

By Stephen May

Shortlisted for the 2012 COSTA Novel Award

Billy's Mum is dead. He knows - because he reads about it in magazines - that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteen-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother's death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them.

Now Billy must be both mother and father to Oscar, and despite what his well-meaning aunt, the PTA mothers, the social services and Oscar's own prodigal father all think, he knows he is more than up to the job, thank you very much.

The boys' new world, where bedtimes are arbitrary, tidiness is optional and healthy home-cooked meals pile up uneaten in the freezer, is built out of chaos and fierce love, but it's also a world that teeters perilously on its axis. And as Billy's obsession with his mother's missing killer grows, he risks losing sight of the one thing that really matters...

Funny, bittersweet and unforgettable, Life! Death! Prizes! is a story of grief, resilience and brotherly love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781408819142

Stephen May

Stephen May is the author of five novels including Life! Death! Prizes! which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and is a winner of the Media Wales Reader’s Prize. He has also written plays, as well as for television and film. He lives in West Yorkshire.

Reviews for Life! Death! Prizes!

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very interesting look at what it means to be an adult and a parent. Billy is 19 when his mother in killed in a mugging; his brother, Oscar, is six. Billy loves Oscar and wants to take care of him. Being 19, this isn't something anyone rejects out of hand -- Billy is considered an adult. But is he?Billy is really still a kid himself; a kid who is dealing with the death of his mother. He isn't a great housekeeper...he isn't great at maintaining a routine or getting Oscar to school. But the adults in the book didn't seem to excell at parenting either: both Billy's and Oscar's fathers were absent. As we watch Billy struggle to hold on to Oscar and to deal with the loss of his Mum, we watch a young man on the verge of adulthood struggle with the meaning of family. The book is often funny...the author has a sharp wit and a good eye for social normes. I enjoyed this book.

[koanmi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Das Festhalten an ihrem Netbook wird Billys Mutter zum Verhängnis: Der Räuber gibt nicht nach, und Ms Smith bezahlt ihre Sturheit mit dem Leben. Billy ist 19 und mit dem Tod seiner Mutter wird er sehr rasch erwachsen. Zusammen mit seinem kleinen Halbbruder Oscar versucht er, ein gemeinsames Leben im Haus seiner Mutter einzurichten und gleichzeitig sein eigenes Leben in den Griff zu bekommen. Stephen May rührt an vielen aktuellen sozialen Themen und webt die unterschiedlichen Handlungsstränge zu einem spannenden, rührenden, nachdenklich machenden und immer wieder heiteren Ganzen. Weil das Geld knapp wird, negiert Billy alle Rechnungen in der Hoffnung, dass die Firmen ihm und seinem Bruder nicht Strom und Wasser abdrehen. Als Billy von einer Bande junger Teenager mit dem Messer bedroht wird, rettet ihn eine Schulbekanntschaft, die mittlerweile als Lehrerin in die Stadt zurückgekehrt ist. Billy kämpft gegen seine Tante, die eine Beziehung mit Oscars Vater beginnt, der sich wiederum sechs Jahre lang nicht um seinen Sohn gekümmert hat, nun aber Besitzansprüche stellt. Dazu kommen Billys altersspezfische Probleme mit sich selbst und die ständige (vermeintliche) Notwendigkeit, seinen Bruder und sich gegenüber der Verwandtschaft, den Behörden und der Umwelt im allgemeinen zu verteidigen. Alles in allem ein wirklich lesenswertes Buch.

[nicx27 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

19 year old Billy Smith's mum was knocked to the ground and killed in a street robbery gone wrong. Billy is left to look after his 6 year old brother, Oscar, and try and cope with all that life is throwing at him now his mum isn't around.This is a touching story of a teenage lad's struggle to care for Oscar on his own. You can tell that he's making mistakes even though he thinks he's doing great, but as the reader I found myself wanting him to succeed. This book also has its funny bits, as Billy tells the story himself and he has quite a sarcastic tone of voice that made me smile and laugh out loud at stages. The title of the book relates to the kind of magazines that feature Life! Death! Prizes! as something on the cover to draw people in, and inside there are bizarre tales that seem to be made up they are so odd. Billy uses them as a way of rationalising what happened to his own mother, sort of a way of seeing how mundane it was. His relationship with Oscar is lovely and he really does try to make it work.I really enjoyed this story. It's very contemporary in style and kind of raw. It's very well written too and drew me right into Billy and Oscar's world.

[caronjane · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazing book that has been getting a lot of coverage in a wide range of places (I first heard about it from Marie Claire who said it was 'unmissable' - and my husband heard a rave review on BBC 6 Music). It's the story of 19 year old Billy Smith who has to become mum, dad, everything to his six year old half brother Oscar. It should be a bleak story but it really isn't because Billy is funny and sharp - even as his life spirals out of control. There are plenty of heart-warming moments, along with the tear-jerking ones. It also has a great and uplifting ending. (oh, and some decent sex!). But it's Billy's voice that really carries this book. The quirky off-beat way he looks at everything from Abba lyrics, to how schools are run, are always entertaining. This is a book you'll want to read in one sitting, and then again more slowly to savour some of the insights and asides. I don't know about life or death but this should be one for the prizes...

[presto_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Billy's mother is killed in a bungled street robbery, the now orphaned nineteen year old boy is determined to look after his six year old step-brother Oscar, despite the advice of his aunt and the reappearance on the scene of Oscar's natural father who belatedly wants to claim him. In his own way Billy, who is doing a gap year before going off to university, does his best, but is is enough, especially once Social Services become involved?The most heartening aspect of Life! Death! Prizes! is Billy's one thought to care for Oscar, and he does all he can to make Oscar happy; and Oscar responds with obvious love for his older brother. There are some delightful episodes: after Billy has been encouraging Oscar to take more responsibility for their easy lifestyle and late nights Oscar responds "but Billy, I'm only six".There is a darker side here too, plagued by thoughts of his mother's now hunted killer, the wayward Aidan Jebb, Billy gradually builds a picture of the youth, and frequently catches glimpses of him as if he is being stalked. But Billy's obsession is in danger of getting out of hand and looks to be heading for tragedy.This is a delightful read, sometimes you may want to shake Billy and tell him to get it together, and you may not always approve of his free lifestyle, or perhaps more pointedly the free-living way his radical mother raised him, but he is all heart and full of good intentions, and has almost endless time and patience for Oscar. It's a lovely premise for a novel, the bothers' determination to stay together, and Stephen May makes of it a lively, imaginative and often funny account which while frequently touching is never is in danger of getting mawkish.