A friend of mine observed recently that some people tell stories in a way that is ‘all event’. Sammy Wright’s debut novel, Fit, is the novelistic equivalent. It is a fascinating and visceral portrait of child poverty and social division, subjects on which Wright, a teacher and member of the Social Mobility Commission, is a significant authority.

Fit follows the teenage years of Rose, a timid student in foster care who is catapulted to modelling fame by a single Instagram photo. Rose experiences a double alienation, both from her friends up north and from middle-class creatives in London. The latter are convinced that they are