(A Derek Owusu Special December 2025 @casualreadersbookclub )
Schoolboy Marcus Is Thrown To The Bureaucratic Wolves of The Care System After Hs Mother Loses Confidence In Her Ability To Raise Him And His Father Has Long Since Added To The Absent Father Figures. Both Parents Have Their Own Unresolved Generational Issues And Now Marcus Will Inherit His, Which He Documents, Focused On How They’ve Impacted Him By The Age of 19 And 25.
On Wednesday July 1st 2026 We Attended The Bookseller Crow Monthly Book Club (The First Wednesday of Every Month) Having Recently Browsed Around The Bookshop At The End of Last Month And Noticed That The Next Book Up For Discussion Was ‘Borderline Fiction’ By Derek Owusu. As A British-African Author Who Survived The Care System We Figured The Debate Was Bound To Be Interesting.
Turns Out We Were Right!
So Much So That We Decided To Interview One of The Book Club Members Who Is A School Social Worker That Qualified Thirty Years Ago Next Year. That Was When A Refreshing And Dare We Say ‘Dashing’ (Back Then, By Politician Standards) Tony Blair Came Into Power And Told Us That Things Can Only Get Better. Especially “Education! Education! Education!“
The Book Club Discussion Was Lively And Busy With A Range of Issues Raised During The Debate. There Were About 25-30 People In Attendance, With Approximately 20% Black & Brown Male And Female Participants And 80% Caucasian Male And Female Participants. Ages Ranged From Young, Middle-Aged, To Senior. A Female Caucasian Senior Commented That Whilst Her World And Marcus’s World Were Entirely Different, She Could Relate To Him As A Human Being.
We Found That Very Moving Actually Because It Reflects Empathy. All Too Often (Including In Hollywood) The Gatekeepers Say Non-Black People Won’t Relate To Black Stories Hence They’re Not Worth Telling. That’s Just Fancy High Finance Racism. Hence The Need For More Independence In Order To Prove Them Wrong. Not To Mention On A Human Level Black People Can Relate To White Stories Just Fine. This Is Because We Are Capable of Seeing The Humanity Of Others Regardless of Colour. This Is True Too For Many, Many, Caucasians.
Street Language, African (Ghanaian) Twi Language, Love, A Lack of Love, The Impact Thereof, Parenting, Foster Parenting, Unresolved Inter-generational Personal Issues, Real And Superficial Relationships, Drug Misuse, Recovery, And The Impact of The Internet, Were All Brought Up By A Mix of Contributors. And It Was Great To See Such Sincere Debate Inspired By Mr Owusu Who Had The Courage, Insight And Emotional Intelligence To Share This Tough Tale of Survival In Such A Challenging Yet Powerful And Important Book.
With Immaculate Timing, A Couple of Days Later, Writer Emma Warren Attended The Bookshop To Give An Author’s In Person Presentation Of Her Book ‘ Up The Youth Club – A Love Letter’ About The Demise of Youth Clubs And Style Associations (Punk, Mods, Soul Boys & Soul Girls For Instance). The Isolation And Anonymity of The Internet And Social (Come Anti-Social) Media In Comparison Highlight The Tradegy of Their Disappearance. Reportedly Later On This Local Literary Soiree Morphed Into Quite The Nostalgic, Middle-Aged, Impromptu Youth Club Revival. Proving Once Again That You Just Can’t Beat The Natural Dynamics of Positive In-Person Face-To-Face Social Interaction. Up The Youth Clubs!
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