Falling into Glory

This takes Westall's boyish heroes and his writing over into the adult world. 17-year-old Robbie, like an older Chas McGill, is at home in the boys' world of school, bullying and rugby. An affair with his much older teacher, Emma Harris, might seem like another masculine excitement, a catch to rival a machine-gun, except that Westall creates so well the delicate shades of feeling in the affair. He is able, along with Robbie, to move beyond the laddish and explore with great tenderness the awful tensions of such a relationship, and the tightrope of love which Emma in particular is forced to walk.