Thalidomide Kid — a review

REVIEW

Kate Rigby has another awesome story with Thalidomide Kid.  Rigby once again draws us into the lives of her characters with very little effort.  The story itself doesn’t have much going on.  It follows two kids through their teen years.  The interesting thing about this story is that doesn’t really focus on Daryl’s handicap.  It more focuses on their relationship and the changes they are going through physically and emotionally as they grow up.  I’m impressed with Rigby’s ability to make daily life interesting.

At first, the POV switches are kind of jarring, as there is no warning.  POV will occasionally switch in the middle of the chapter, as will the time.  You can suddenly skip ahead days or weeks with no warning.  While Daryl’s handicap does play an important part in their lives (mostly with their peers), there classism seems to be a larger barrier to his relationship with Celia.  It’s interesting to see the historical views of people with disabilities, as Rigby weaves the subtle prejudices into her narrative.   The secret lives of teenagers are exposed as the “nice young boys” Celia’s parents try to encourage her to take interest in.

Through it all, the interest in what happens pulls the reader along.  While I didn’t care about the minutia of their daily lives, I really pulled for Celia and Daryl to make it.  There was something about them that struck me.  I really recommend this novel by Kate Rigby to get, not only a feel for being a person with a disability, but also the classist nature of society and how people’s attitudes can encourage failure…and overcoming all those things.

AMAZON

AUTHOR BIO

Kate Rigby was born near Liverpool and now lives in the south west of England.  She’s been writing for nearly forty years. She has been traditionally published, small press published and indie published.

She realized her unhip credentials were mounting so she decided to write about it. Little Guide to Unhip was first published in 2010 and has since been updated.

However she’s not completely unhip. Her punk novel, Fall Of The Flamingo Circus was published by Allison & Busby (1990) and by Villard (American hardback 1990). Skrev Press published her novels Seaview Terrace (2003) Sucka!(2004) and Break Point (2006) and other shorter work has appeared in Skrev’s magazines.

Thalidomide Kid was published by Bewrite Books (2007).

Her novel Savage To Savvy was an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Quarter-Finalist in 2012.

She has had other short stories published and shortlisted including Hard Workers and Headboards, first published in The Diva Book of Short Stories, in an erotic anthology published by Pfoxmoor Publishing and more recently in an anthology of Awkward Sexcapades by Beating Windward Press.

She also received a Southern Arts bursary for her novel Where A Shadow Played (now re-Kindled as Did You Whisper Back?).

She has re-Kindled her backlist and is gradually getting her titles (back) into paperback

More information can be found at her website.

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