Awards

• Short-listed for Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature 2008 (UK)

Overview

Long-dead Lord Byron started it. The rock star of his age. But a poet with about as much relevance to the blood grudge struggle that marks modern life for most of humanity, as he has to the practice of sliding down snowy slopes on planks of wood. And yet, it was thanks to Byron that Itchy ended up living in Chamonix Mont Blanc, the death-sport capital of the world, among the high mountains and low morals. In the intervening years he has tried hard with alcohol and adrenaline to numb a past he can't atone for. Now a serial rapist is stalking Cham's tourist-thronged streets, haunting the same shadows as itchy and triggering an obsession which will lead him far from Europe's zenith, to the depths of the valley and himself. The promise of Jonathan Trigell's first novel, Boy A, is fully realised in this evocation of the world of extreme sports, where the reckless violence of a callow man's life comes back to haunt him.

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9781852429584

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Reviews

Jonathan Trigell's writing soars when describing the sublime mountain scenery and the rushing, redemptive exhilaration of skiing... But he's equally at ease conveying the murky moral ambiguity of Itchy's life... Exposing the darkness at the heart of a white world, Trigell's second novel is tense with foreboding: a clever, contemporary cliff hanger * Metro * Does for extreme winter sports what Alex Garland's The Beach did for backpacking * Financial Times * The walking, stalking spirit of Chamonix: forever chasing the beautiful adrenaline rush, but also driven by a dark force * Guardian * Impressive tale of a wayward young man looking for redemption in the shadow of Mont Blanc * Daily Mirror * There's a chilling edge to this tale of skiing, sex and partying * Independent * At the other end of the spectrum are those writers who have literary ideals but - almost in an act of defiance against some of their peers - still manage to entertain their readers with a story. For some reason many of the best of these - Emily Bronte, Leo Tolstoy and so on - are long gone. There are contemporary writers, however, following in their footsteps... Jonathan Trigell is one of these writers. Cham, his second novel, is serious but never worthy * Sydney Morning Herald * Cham is being likened to Alex Garland's The Beach. It explores another youth-oriented sub-culture - think skis and snowboards rather than backpacks - and the writing has a similar crafted intensity. Sharp metaphors are cut into its pages * Independent * A murky, romantic look at the underbelly of season life * Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Magazine *

'A fine and moving debut novel... a rare treat' Independent '[A] modern day immorality tale about the attempted rehabilitation of a child implicated in murder... delivered with a horrific sense of foreboding' Arena

Author Information

Jonathan Trigell was born in Welwyn in 1974. In 2002 he completed an MA in creative writing at Manchester University. He has been a TV extra, an outdoor pursuits instructor and a ski rep. His first novel, Boy A, won the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best work in the Commonwealth by an author under 35, and the Waverton Good Read Award, also for best first novel of 2004.

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