You write forcefully about the body through out the book, particularly about the changes in Lucy’s body from birth through adolescence into adulthood...

Many of the words return again and again to her body, as she grows, and her body in relation to her mother’s body, as that is the central relationship in the book. I came home from school with something bubbling beneath my blouse' (translation: I want a belly-button piercing - just weird articulation) Saltwater moved me to tears on several occasions; here is proof of the poetic idiosyncrasies of every family, of every person’s narrative being worthy of literature, of the fact that a good novel shouldn’t bring voices in from the margins, but travel outwards towards them, and let them tell their own story, in their own voice, in their own, unique way." I am wet and glistening like a beetroot pulsing in soil' (yeah but is beetroot wet when it's in the earth? I'd be pretty worried if it pulsed...)As a teenager I ran from solidity and stasis and shades of brown. I wanted things that flashed and fizzled. Now that I am here, beneath the peat smoke and the penny-coloured skies, brown seems like a safe place. I can crawl into it and swallow fistfuls of soil. Jessica Andrews was born in 1992 in Sunderland and has spent time living in Santa Cruz, Paris, Donegal and London, and is now based in Barcelona. She co-runs an online literary magazine, the Grapevine, which gives a platform to under-represented writers and artists. Her powerful debut novel, Saltwater, tells the coming-of-age story of Lucy, moving between Sunderland, London and Ireland, and explores identity in relation to place, class and the body. Author Daisy Johnson says the book “dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone’s shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch.” Yes. Once I left Sunderland and went to London, going home was never the same as you change yourself to fit in, in ways like dialect and accent. I feel that the cultural divide is vast. I come from a line of immaculately turned-out women, experts in dusting make-up over their faces to conceal the tremors that ran through their lives."

I am just another impossibility. Colourless. Unformed. You cannot imagine anything as fiercely small, as fiercely hungry as me. There is a splitting that has not happened yet. This is you before me. You are a daughter and not a mother. Not yet. And yet; there are invisible things drawing us close, even here. Fall into those molten afternoons, his hands all over your body. Spill towards me. He found himself in Sunderland, among the crashing and clanking of the shipyards. He lived in a boarding house run by a gentle woman and her sharp and gorgeous daughter. He befriended Toni from Italy, who ate cocaine for breakfast and dreamed of running a café, and he shared a room with Harry from Derry, who played the spoons and had a crucifix tattooed across his chest. Andrews writes beautiful, unusual descriptions, and short chapters give [Saltwater] a poetic sensibility . . . Andrews’ debut declares her one to watch.”Class and gender are central and it is unusual to read a strong working class northern female voice. It is semi-autobiographical and parts of it mirrors Andrews’ own experience. Andrews looks at stereotypes and her own experience and the tensions growing up and moving on bring:

It’s to do with struggling in London. Me and my friend were feeling like we have so many talented, hardworking friends who are brilliant artists and it’s so difficult to have a platform; when you’re trying to make art and working lots of jobs and not getting anywhere, it’s so demoralising. Doing lots of DIY stuff with small presses really keeps you going and reminds you that writing is meaningful. Auntie Kitty rationed the hot water and made anyone who entered the house throw holy sand over their left shoulder, To Keep Away The Devil. Her husband was in the IRA and they housed radical members of Sinn Féin in their attic."I rode the coloured snakes of the tube to parts of the city I'd read about' (coloured snakes? coloured snakes!) There were times when I wanted to hear more about the other characters, but then the entire project is devoted to one young woman’s subjectivity. There is little dialogue, but if the interiority can occasionally feel wearing, it is worth it for its refreshing perspective. Lucy feels the acute tension and anxiety that arises between leaving your community and staying. I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19. For those who leave, it will be a balm to know they are not alone. For those who stay, Saltwater tells you there is life elsewhere, but that finding it can tear your heart in two. Saltwater] features something very rare in literary fiction: a working-class heroine, written by a young working-class author . . . The writing is disarmingly honest . . . This is a courageous book dealing frankly with youth, puberty, mother-daughter relationships, class, disability and alcoholism . . . I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19." I wrote the book in three separate strands: Lucy’s childhood to university, the Ireland strand, then the body strand. I printed it out, then physically cut it up. My neighbour was away and I had the key to their house in Ireland with a very big kitchen, so I spread the whole thing out on her kitchen floor and made little piles of themes that went together. Questo romanzo (che si intuisce essere un po’ autobiografico) ha in sé tutto il dolore di chi non ha avuto una vita facile e ce l’ha messa tutta per riscattarsi e per ricostruirsi. È duro e al tempo stesso poetico.