Sadie Jones's book follows desperate childhoods in the 1950s, a time of drink, sadness, violence, and a general lack of understanding.

I don't want to talk too much about the plot, for fear of ruining it for others, but it is convincing and well-written, though the sparseness and the minimalism of Jones's writing does have a mildly diminishing effect. ( )

For Lewis Aldridge, the main protagonist in The Outcast, life was pretty normal until he was ten years old. Since his unsuccessful attempt to rescue his mother on a fateful summer day and then watching her drown in the river near their home, Lewis has lived a painful existence. Lewis the child and later Lewis the man can't seem to get it right when it comes to living.

The novel is divided into three parts and a prologue. Near London in 1957, we learn that Lewis has just been released from prison. The story begins when Lewis is just a child leading a typical life with his mother. Soon his father returns from war, changing the dynamic of the family. As mother, father and son settle into their new lives together, things begin to be more normal until his mother dies. Then, less than a year later, his father remarries a young woman.

No one knows quite how to interact with Lewis. This great tragedy in his life makes him feel unapproachable, and Lewis doesn't know what to think anymore. His distant father isn't helpful, his inexperienced step-mother quickly becomes exasperated, and his friends find him strange. He's not normal, and he knows it. His pain becomes more and more unbearable, and he begins to cut himself to relieve the tension. He begins to run away to London occasionally where he meets a woman at a jazz club who introduces Lewis to manhood. One day after a violent interaction with a neighborhood boy, he decides to do something more by burning down the church.

He gets out of prison two years later to find that not much has changed since he left, including how others relate to him. He has such hope that things will be better now and that he can regain the trust of others. It is devastating to him that his father is still cold and his step-mother is still bewildered. He reconnects with some old friends, but the relationships are awkward and tenuous.

Lewis' final lesson to learn is that everyone else's life is not as idyllic as it seems. There is plenty of pain to go around for everyone. He finds help and release from unexpected places. He finds betrayal and conspiracy. But he also finds tenderness and love.

I gravitate toward debut novels, and this one was excellent and replete with strong symbolism and messages about human nature, loss, love, and the damage of misunderstandings. The story weighs you down while simultaneously lifting you up. I felt love for Lewis but was a little afraid of him as well. Jones brings the reader into the fray, making you feel that you are with the characters, witnessing and feeling with them.

Elizabeth and Gilbert Aldridge are an ill-matched couple but very much in love when he returns to her and their son Lewis after WWII. Elizabeth is a free spirit who clearly sees the pettiness of Dicky Carmichael, Gilbert's boss; Gilbert also knows Dicky for what he is, but his conventional ambition leads him to suppress judgment. Then, when Lewis is ten, Elizabeth drowns, with Lewis as the only witness, a little boy too small to save her. Suddenly Lewis is alone. His father withdraws from him and remarries a woman too young and too wrapped up in Gilbert to offer any help to Lewis at all.

The book opens with Lewis at nineteen coming back home from a four year prison sentence to Gilbert and Alice who don't want him and can't not take him. Meanwhile, Dicky's daughters have grown up: Tamsin, lovely and shallow; and Kit, less obviously beautiful, but still in love with Lewis.

The rest of the story shows Lewis - both before and after his time in prison - trying to connect with the world. It seems as though his assessment of reality is correct: "It looked like everybody was in a broken, bad world that fitted them just right." That is not the end of the story though, and the book ends with Lewis looking forward in hope.

The Outcast is beautifully written in straightforward, understated prose. Flashbacks are skillfully done, and the whole thing moves forward to its bittersweet conclusion. ( )

Quite moving and gripping. Stayed in the mind long after the book was finished.

The story is set in England in the 1950's. While his father is away at WW2 a young boy develops a close bond with his mother who is a free spirited and warm. On his return the father proves to be very conservative, oppressive and distant. The mother accidentally drowns and the boy is shattered by the circumstances.

The father can't deal with his son at all. The other adult males are also damaged goods who wreak havoc on their families.

The psychological assaults continue as he grows up and he gradually becomes disturbed. In the final conflagration the young man tries, and succeeds, in protecting the one person he cares for.

He ( )

In one house, a tragic set of circumstances lead to sad, disturbing behaviour and consquences; in another house, the bullying head abuses his mostly compliant family. A horrible, well-told story, which I could only read in small chunks, greatly relieved to get to the hopeful, final pages. ( )