![]() Oliver reads the dictionary and thesaurus and begins his diary extracts with a Word of the Day. ![]() Yes, he explores the sexual awakening of the teenage boy, but he also engages with curiosity and a sense of pretentiousness that is typical of an intelligent teenager. Written during his BA creative writing course at the University of East Anglia, it is likely that Dunthorne was particularly close to Oliver’s age at the time. He has succeeded in creating a perfect teenager by steering away from the stereotypical and instead engages directly with a younger self. Writing a believable teenager as an adult is inevitably difficult, but Joe Dunthorne does it with such skill, it is very difficult to poke holes in the character. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that he is the perfect representation of a fifteen year old boy. Oliver Tate is, as a teenage protagonist, one of the most believable characters in a teenage fiction novel I have ever come across. ![]() Elin Williams extols the pleasures of submerging into the prose of Joe Dunthorne’s popular and film-adapted novel, Submarine, as part of our Greatest Welsh Novel series. ![]()
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