''We got a McDonald's the night my mam got lung cancer.''

As a distraction from sleazy male admirers, spiteful classmates and her mother''s cancer, Eve''s eyes are opened to a multicolour life of one-night stands, drug-fuelled discos and cheap booze. She barely has time to notice the reclusive, obsessive-compulsive Adam. Adam, however, notices Eve.

Narrated alternately by Adam and Eve alongside a cast of delinquents, foetuses and butterflies, Apples is an exploration of the sickly-sweet turmoil of growing up and the hazards of getting ''fucked as quick as you can''.

First published in 2007 and reissued now by White Rabbit, Apples arrived like a meteor on the literary landscape with Milward barely out of his teenage years.