I ask Oscar how I could be a better guardian and he does his special concentrating face. 'Well,' the little philosopher says at last. 'You should send me to bed earlier. I shouldn't eat so many chips and you shouldn't let me watch so many 12 and 15 DVDs. And you should get a cleaner in.' Jesus. Why does everyone reckon they're the boss of me? I say, 'Perhaps you should take some responsibility for yourself big man.'He fixes me with a stern look. 'Billy, I'm six.'
Billy's Mum is dead. He knows - because he reads about it in magazines - that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteen-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother's death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them.
Now Billy must be both mother and father to Oscar, and despite what his well-meaning aunt, the PTA mothers, the social services and Oscar's own prodigal father all think, he knows he is more than up to the job, thank you very much.
The boys' new world, where bedtimes are arbitrary, tidiness is optional and healthy home-cooked meals pile up uneaten in the freezer, is built out of chaos and fierce love, but it's also a world that teeters perilously on its axis. And as Billy's obsession with his mother's missing killer grows, he risks losing sight of the one thing that really matters...
Funny, bittersweet and unforgettable, Life! Death! Prizes! is a story of grief, resilience and brotherly love.
