In 2006 he named a top ten list of books about the darker side of adolescence, including:The Tooth Fairy by Graham JoyceRead about another book Mills tagged at the Guardian.
Though Joyce's novels are shelved in the fantasy sections in bookshops, his books are about as far away from Tolkien as you can get. The Tooth Fairy begins firmly in reality, exploring - with wonderfully deft observation - the adventures of a boy called Sam Southall growing up in England in the 1960s. At the age of seven, Sam loses a tooth and is visited by a Tooth Fairy. But this is no fluffy sprite: Joyce's Tooth Fairy smells rank, peppers his language with swearwords and makes sinister threats. Joyce blends together fantasy and reality as the Tooth Fairy becomes a superb metaphor for his hero's adolescence, metamorphosing as Sam shifts from boyhood to manhood.
--Marshal Zeringue
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