A moving novel about the harshness and hardship, warmth and fun of life in a south Wales valley, and about childhood friendships and rivalries, fear of communism, hooliganism and insanity.

Nofel deimladwy am erwinder a chaledi, cynhesrwydd a rhialtwch bywyd yn un o gymoedd de Cymru, ac am gyfeillgarwch plentyndod, ofn comiwnyddiaeth, hwliganiaeth a gwallgofrwydd.

He fancies himself, doesn't he?" says Liam Bennett's best friend Colin of the new boy in the class. Liam isn't so sure. His curiosity turns to admiration when the new boy stands up to Preece, the school bully. Preece beats him in a set-to, but only by fighting dirty, and he receives some damage along the way.

The new boy is Marek Sikorski, son of a Polish fighter pilot who flew for the RAF in the war. Soon he is pals with Liam and Colin, and swearing them into his anti-Communist resistance. They stone trains carrying Communists to Crindau, the fictional South Wales coastal city in which the action is set. But Marek is eager to up the stakes. When the boys find a crashed car full of contraband cigarettes in the woods, they start to sell them to raise money in the hope of buying armaments. Then Marek turns up with three home-made Molotov Cocktails…

We are in the 1960s. Robert Kennedy has been assassinated, The Beatles have cut Hey Jude, and the Cold War is set at freezing. Liam, Colin and Marek are Roman Catholics. Liam's parents are Irish, escapees from the delights of bog-standard Ballyhack.

Like Marek, Liam's father has a bee in his bonnet. He fears the outbreak of nuclear war. He wants to go back to Ireland, a country nobody in his right mind (he believes) would bother to nuke, but when his wife rejects the move he goes down into the cellar and begins work on a network of tunnels - his version of a nuclear shelter. As Liam is drawn deeper into Marek's zany but dangerous world, so is he infected by the father's burgeoning fantasies.

All This is Mine begins in realism and ends in something else. Madness? - certainly. Surrealism? - possibly. Its tone lies somewhere between tragedy and
comedy, but oscillates violently and refuses to settle down. Brendan Bennett begins as a comedy Irishman, but ends somewhere else. Liam is by turns sympathetic and obnoxious - he brutally bullies his younger brother Michael. If in this debut novel it was Ray French's intention to wrong-foot and perturb his reader, he has succeeded in spades.

Richard Poole

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.