FIRE RUSH

Music and tragedy move a young Jamaican woman in 1980s London to transform her life.

Music is a powerful force in Crooks’ incendiary debut novel, echoing the rhythms in the life of a young woman just beginning to find her voice. Set in the late 1970s and early ’80s, this is the story of Yamaye, who lives in a run-down housing complex with her Jamaican father outside London. Yamaye sleepwalks through her dull factory job, coming alive when she and her friends head to the Crypt, an underground club that thrives on darkness, sweat, and the driving beats of dub reggae. There are other spaces in which she feels safe—the local record shop, the Pentecostal church—but Yamaye is well aware that all such refuges are controlled by unyielding men. Though she dreams of making music herself, she's mostly content to dream and enjoy the escape dancing provides. Then one night she meets Moose, a thoughtful carpenter whose stories about his grandmother in Jamaica make her ache for the past and her own missing mother, who fled London when Yamaye was a child. Their romance blossoms, and Moose reveals possibilities she hadn’t considered. But love is not a shield, and when tragedy strikes, Yamaye is forced to confront the realities shaping her existence: racism, sexism, poverty, fear. Crooks creates unforgettable characters here, fleshed out with empathy and wisdom, and she writes in a lyrical style, expertly shaping Yamaye’s evolution from “Tombstone Estate gyal” to fierce, proud woman determined to liberate herself from perceived limitations and male aggression. “It always takes me time to realise someone’s hurting me,” she thinks. “A few minutes, a day, a year. Twenty-four years. Four hundred years.” Once awakened, however, Yamaye will be vigilant, dancing joyfully to her own beat.

A compelling coming-of-age story about personal loss and political awakening.