The latest addition to my website is Jenni Fagan‘s Panopticon. Jenni Fagan is the only Scottish writer nominated for the Granta’s Best Young British Novelists list. This novel is not going to be everyone’s idea of fun, telling the story of Anais Hendricks, a fifteen-year old girl who has spent her life in care homes and foster families, not knowing anyone she is related to. Anais is what we might called troubled. She has a long arrest record – drugs, assault, failing to obey curfew orders and arson – and, at the beginning of this novel is strongly suspected of having assaulted a policewoman, who is now in a coma. She is sent to a panopticon, a C-shaped prison, where the guards can observe all residents. (The observer is a Nurse Ratched-like figure called Night Nurse.) The story concerns Anais’ life in the panopticon, her relationship with the other residents (generally good, despite the occasional fight) and with the staff (generally bad) and her attempt, aided by her social worker, Angus, to clear her name of the assault on the policewoman. Fagan spares us little detail of the continual aura of violence, the drug use and petty crime and the fairly hopeless lives that many of the residents live, though Anais, despite her faults and criminal record, is someone we must admire, as she struggles to escape from the negative environment she finds herself in. This novel is presumably at least semi-autobiographical, as Fagan herself was in care homes and has worked as a prison writer, so has seen people in similar situations. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here, if she is going to maintain her reputation as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.