Anthem for Jackson Dawes

13-year-old (‘almost 14’) Megan is disconcerted to find, on her arrival in hospital, that she’s been put in the ‘baby ward’ which is indeed full of crying babies, plastic toys and cheerful posters. The only other teenager on the ward is tall, gangly 16-year-old Jackson (‘like an ebony statue’) who frequently disappears to wander round the hospital. Initially Megan is not sure she likes him and she keeps her distance.

Megan has a cancerous tumour that requires chemotherapy before an operation can be carried out. Bryce conveys well the surreal feelings Megan experiences on her first night in her hospital room, taking in the unfamiliar sounds of the life of the ward outside her door.  As she settles in, a cast of characters is introduced – stern Sister Brewster, kind nurse Siobhan, the two giggly nine-year-olds who adore Jackson, demanding four-year-old Kipper with her bald head to whom he tells stories about Mr Henry, the hospital cat.

Disappointed and hurt that her school friends text rather than come to see her, Megan finds companionship and understanding with Jackson – he is there when her hair starts to fall out and his acceptance and care become essential to her. Jackson is also, of course, a good looking older boy, and there is a sexual tension, delicately conveyed, as Megan experiences first love.

As the months go by, the two friends encounter each other again on subsequent hospital stays and Jackson’s increasing indifference to the rules of the ward point to his own struggles with illness (he has a rare form of cancer).  Little Kipper dies and it is an irony for Megan that her grandfather, in his nineties, is celebrating yet another birthday. The rage at such unfairness is powerfully evoked.  And what does the future hold, if anything, for Megan and Jackson?

Celia Bryce’s debut novel appears to be either very well researched or written from personal experience as she convincingly and movingly charts the trajectory of Megan’s emotional experience as she confronts the fragility of life – her own and that of others.  This is a touching novel full of well observed detail.