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Underdogs
Paperback
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- Book Synopsis
- 'A powerful debut with plenty of northern soul . . . it's these untold stories that need to be on the page - now more than ever' BENJAMIN MYERS, Guardian 'A spirited and heartwarming portrait of a fast-dying community, and the dogs are wonderful' FT'These hands,' he said, and spread the paira them out wide so we could see the callouses and the little lines of coal dust underneath his skin; 'these hands were made to pick out summat precious from somewhere that doesn't wanna give it up.' County Durham, 1998. The pits have closed and jobs are hard to come by, but charismatic ex-miner Bertie has a plan. He runs an underground gambling ring at the local dog track which offers down-on-their-luck blokes a way to turn their life around. Reg's ten-year-old son George knows his dad hasn't been the same since Mam died, and the letters with scary red type that keep coming through the door can't be good news. So when Bertie offers Reg and George the chance to race Goldie, a beautiful fawn greyhound, they jump at the opportunity. To succeed they'll need to learn how to navigate the larger-than-life world of the flapping track, all while dark secrets from Bertie's past threaten to unravel the operation. Do Reg and George have what it takes to pull off the gamble of a lifetime?'A love letter to a disappearing community' Service95'Beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting, funny . . . At times my own heart was racing as if with the dogs . . . a story of love, of loss, of hope; of life and how to live it even when the chips are down' JENNY KNIGHT, author of Wild Moon Rising'Told with a full-blooded voice that is as quick and alive as the hounds that fill its pages, Underdogs captures a forgotten way of life in a forgotten part of England with rare honesty and wit ' SCOTT PRESTON, author of The Borrowed Hills
- About The Author
- Louise Powell is an award-winning working-class writer from Middlesbrough. She won the Sid Chaplin Northern Writers' Award 2023, and was the joint recipient of the Peter Lathan Prize for New Playwriting 2022. Louise's plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra and performed at nine theatres. She has written three commissioned short art films, as well as two Arts Council funded audio documentary series, and was published in Kit de Waal's acclaimed Common People anthology. She is the author of the Coal Face poetry and creative non-fiction collections. She has a PhD in English from Sheffield Hallam University. She has also held a Professional Greyhound Trainer's Licence. Underdogs is her first novel.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9781399828819
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- JM Originals, (02 July 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 272
- Weight
- 280 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 214 x 134 x 28 mm
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