Chicken and Chips is a coming-of-age story about 14-year-old Jake which comes from Rottingdean-based author Julia Clarkson, aged 85.

It has been published by The Book Guild, paperback £7.99, also available as an eBook at £2.99. Available from Amazon, Waterstones and T G Jones (formerly W H Smith).

Julia explains: “The first version of the book was written in 2005, but before sending it to the Book Guild last year, I completely revised it and wrote four new chapters. The book is written in the first person. I am my protagonist, Jake, and my point is, that even as a much older author, I am still able to put myself in the shoes of a 14-year-old and write realistically about his life. Coincidentally, the book has received some very positive reviews online from 14-year-olds, who have remarked on its authenticity.

“Chicken and Chips is a coming-of-age story about 14-year-old Jake who navigates school bullies, first crushes, and the stigma of his alcoholic father, using wit and resilience to survive the chaos of adolescence and home life.

“This is a realistic, hard-hitting novel depicting what life is like for many children living with an alcohol-dependent parent. According to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, one in five children in the UK are affected by their parents’ drinking. A tough subject deserves tough writing, and the book does come with a content warning. However, it is not a diatribe. Although frank about the darker side of life, I have tried to handle a difficult subject with empathy and humour.

“My late husband, a chronic alcoholic, was the inspiration for writing this book, and although Jake’s father is a fictional character and in no way resembles my husband, some of the incidents related in the book really happened. For instance, the ‘man battered in fish shop’ newspaper article; falling from top to bottom on the tube station escalator, leaving him with a permanent limp; losing yet another job after he got drunk at the company’s Christmas party; falling off the platform while inebriated at Waterloo Station only inches from the live rail, and dying at Monument underground station after another fall from the top of a flight of stone steps.

“I hoped that by writing realistically about the self-destructive nature of heavy drinking, and the effect that out-of-control drinking can have on family life, it might not only highlight the appalling effect and consequences of such behaviour, but also perhaps act as a deterrent.

“My husband was an intelligent, ambitious, charismatic man, but his compulsive, long-term abuse of alcohol not only destroyed him, it also destroyed any semblance of normal family life, hence my writing this book, which I hope will, in some way, act as a warning of the destructive fallout that results from alcohol addiction.”

Julia added: “I was a very bookish only child, and from an early age I was writing little books and making a library. My first published piece was in The Independent weekend magazine when I won a competition for writing the complete works of Dickens in 150 words. I also won a bottle of champagne! I was also shortlisted from over 2,000 entries by the novelist Beryl Bainbridge for an international short story competition. Inspired by this I went on to write Netherworld and Chicken and Chips. I am quite introverted, and writing is my escape into another world in which I can express myself freely.”