Deputy headteacher from Sunderland – and new novelist – on levelling up and his advice to the incoming head of the commission
Two teenagers are curled up on a sofa, asleep in each other’s arms. On the kitchen floor close by, an adult lies in a pool of blood. Soon the police will be on their way and the siblings, who were abused and neglected as children, will pay a heavy price for what they have done.
This is is a dramatic scene from Fit, the debut novel by Sammy Wright, a deputy headteacher and until this month a member of the Social Mobility Commission. His book, which evolved from his experience as a teacher, is so haunting that I found myself thinking – and even dreaming – about it days after I’d finished reading it. It has already won the Northern Book prize.
