Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is heartening to see a talented young writer who was unafraid of taking the time to pay their dues and take the next logical step in their journey as a dispenser of words and ideas; it is enriching when they reveal what you always suspected, what you hoped and dreamed of them, that they are a connoisseur of the art, knowledgeable, experienced, and willing to place their soul between each word, each deliberated sentenced chewed over, given room to be digested, willing to be stung by their own reaction, and ready to soothe the reader as they fall head first into a narrative weaved from possible suffering.

Adam Scovell’s talent has always been assured, from his tentative steps before thrusting himself into the literary life at the University of Liverpool, and from his in-depth research in the realm of the great British films that seem to grace every period, it has been a journey of documented practise and skill, and in Nettles, that sense of journalistic quality for detail and authenticity is transferred with a surgeon’s precision, with a mind deeply immersed in their subject.

It is to imagery that Nettles is a record of youth, the testament of grief, of fear, of the battles that ensue in the minds of those who are the very edge of being transferred from one particular place to another; and in the case of Adam Scovell’s protagonist, it is the damage and control of the first few days of senior school. In this wilderness of bullied exteriors comes the comfort of the Wirral marshes, of finding consolation and security in the natural wildness of an area; and one described as beautifully, as intelligently as you would expect to find a Constable painting, as forthcoming as a cartographer’s map.

There is no such thing as a bad tale, but what makes it stand out is the belief in knowing that the heart and soul of the writer is not only held within the story, but that it has been questioned, stamped, and acted as a herald of sacrifice, of allowing some pain from the author’s life to be used as a cathartic exercise.

To be stung by Nettles is to know you have lived the life of Adam Scovell’s The Boy, for we are all that child in an oversized uniform, we have all found hidden corners near our home, within the school gates, in which to hide from the nature of the oppressor.

A beautifully detailed tale, one of heartbreak and reassurance, and one to which Mr. Scovell was always going to bring to life.

Adam Scovell’s Nettles is out now.

Ian D. Hall