Gary Allen

The Estate Gary Allen

The Estate is a gritty tale set in a large working-class housing-estate in Northern Ireland just after 'the troubles' when the residents living there are trying to come to terms with what 'the peace process' actually means to them, and the changing face of the conflict which is degenerated into casual violence, lawlessness, and deprived poverty, while trying to build on the future. The story is told through the eyes of a local teenager - unemployed, unemployable, petty criminal, broken home, who navigates, with humour and a sense of survival, life on the estate, and tells of his friends, their sexual adventures/misadventures, and the one great goal that keeps them going from day to day - the dream of escaping to a better (if largely misunderstood) future. The novel opens with the main character rising before anyone else is awake on the estate, to see the local commuter train passing, and ends with the main character ending-up in prison when - after his hopes of escaping are dashed - with him causing the train to crash. The estate is buoyed along with black humour and social realism, and, although it is set in Northern Ireland, could be a story of any large housing-estate anywhere in today's Britain.