Alex Kadis establishes a jaunty tone from the very first pages of her debut about Connie Costa, a music-loving teenager stuck at home in east London in the mid-1970s, longing to break free from her smothering Greek Cypriot extended family, and in particular her restrictive father. Dubbing him “the fat murderer”, she has dreamed endlessly about killing him ever since the car accident a year before that took the lives of her mother and younger brothers. Lively, opinionated, and slightly chubby in her groovy 70s gear, Connie has two imaginary friends in the form of Marc Bolan and “bloody David Bowie”, with whom she communes via the posters on her bedroom wall. Marc she adores, but Bowie can be a bit snide, as well as having dubious taste in fashion.
She’s starting to develop a keen interest in the male trouser region (Marc’s is placed at eye level). In the case of her father’s friend, Peter Pervy Roy, who wears “trousers so eye-wateringly tight that they squashed his knob and bollocks into a weird flat patty”, actual proximity can be off-putting. Far more appetising is her childhood friend Vas, similarly suffering from growing up while Greek. Vas displays his willy on demand: “It’s definitely getting bigger.” Everyone else assumes he’s gay because he reads poetry.
It may look like a product-placing romp through 70s style and culture, all foot-long Curly Wurlys and teetering platform shoes, but darker undercurrents soon emerge – if the fantasised patricide hasn’t already been a tipoff. “All our dads hit us, it’s practically the law in Cyprus,” Connie commiserates with Vas, but as usual her father takes it too far, leading to public humiliations such as The School Disco Disaster of 1975 (Connie attends against his wishes) and The Great Cinema Showdown of 1976 (Connie glances at some boys before a screening of Hello, Dolly!).
A trio of aunts and a sympathetic music teacher look out for Connie’s interests, but there’s a limit to what they can do within a fiercely patriarchal system. Connie’s dream is to become a session musician, but she knows her destiny is to marry a Greek boy chosen for her and retreat into domesticity and child rearing. Her blue eyes and fair colouring, inherited from her English mother, set her apart from her olive-skinned tribe, and the beatings and restrictions have eroded her will. Vas is aghast to find a note headed “The many things I hate about myself”, number one being “I am nothing”.
For all its humour, it becomes clear that the underlying theme of Big Nobody is the lasting effects of PTSD. The final glimpse of her mother being driven away at speed by her irate father is seared on Connie’s memory, but tellingly, she can’t even remember her mother’s name. On Christmas morning, 1975, Connie comes downstairs early to spot her father, in his underpants, standing at the back door staring blankly out at the garden. The narrative is not concerned with his feelings, and nor is Connie: “Somehow it was a miserably complex tableau. I had no idea what it meant and was not about to dwell on it.” Besides, the underpants are a horrible colour.
As father and daughter become ever more estranged, Connie makes her bid for freedom on 16 September 1977, the date Bolan dies in a car crash. A plot twist has all the melodrama of a 70s TV series but it’s hard not to root for a heroine who is so touching a mixture of resilience and hurt, bouncy self-esteem and its crushing opposite. The final section leaps forward 30 years to see Connie forge a surprising new persona and come to terms at last with her Cypriot heritage. Kadis, who went on to work in music journalism and artist promotion, has written a debut that sparkles like Marc Bolan’s eye makeup.
• Big Nobody by Alex Kadis is published by Hutchinson Heinemann (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
