Gun Love

A pregnant young woman runs away from home and lives in her car just on the edge of a trailer park in Florida. She intends to stay there temporarily but ends up raising her child there for fourteen years.

A grim and gritty melodrama told through the wide-open eyes of a child. The flowery prose and colourful account of daily life living in the car are compelling, but Clement carefully avoids over-romanticising the situation.

Despite the avoidance of poor-taste it’s a bit of a clumsy novel with its eye-rollingly paper thin characters propping up the story. However, it’s compelling enough to keep you hooked and ultimately proves to be a biting takedown of the current state of affairs in some parts of the US.