The outcast (original 2008; edition 2008)

This novel definitely falls in the category of Suburban Secrets Stripped Bare! Interesting story but overall the writing was weak and uneven. Specifically found her shifting of POV ineffective and, at times, downright clumsy. It seemed somehow rushed. It was pretty ambitious (ala McCarthy, Ishiguro, McEwan), so I stuck with it. But by the end the characters had become flat and colorless.

This is a first novel, so I may check her out later down the road. ( )

Lewis is seven when his father comes back from the war, and it's something of a shock to him, and changes the routines he had got into with his mother. When he's ten, his mother dies (she drowned, Lewis tried to help but couldn't). It's not really talked about afterwards, Lewis returns to boarding school and his father marries Alice fairly soon afterwards. Years pass: life is about keeping up the appearances while behind the scenes Lewis, Alice and Gilbert are all unhappy and drinking too much; nearby, Gilbert's boss Dicky Carmichael is abusive towards his wife and daughters, children who were Lewis's friends when they were younger goad him into fighting and then see him as a monster. Apperances shatter when Lewis goes to prison for arson, and remain uncomfortably shaky when he is released, and it doesn't take long for everything to blow up again.

Readable but I didn't like this book, and found all the genteel misery a bit too dreary and miserable. ( )

This book packs a wallop and is definitely not for those who like soft, rosy stories.

It is a book that will haunt me for awhile...a long while.

As stated in the opening chapter, two people went into the woods for a picnic and only one returned!

When young Lewis witnesses the drowning of his mother, his life spins way out of control while his father and the upper crust social strata of 1940-1950's England encourages and foments denial.

When his father rapidly marries and Lewis' feelings are pushed further and further underground, he acts out in ways that harm himself and those around him.

This is a graphic novel -- not in the sense of cartoon like pictures -- but in the reality of stark images written at the hand of a very adept and powerfully skilled author.

Struggling to write a review about the awesome power of this book, I'll simply say it is a very compelling look at the phoniness of society. It is an incredible story of a young man struggling to find meaning in a very crazy environment.

While those around him are quite comfortable in their accouterments, lavish lifestyles, dinner parties and social status, their out-of- reality behaviors literally drive Lewis crazy!

While the adults emotionally and physically abuse their children behind closed doors, they quite comfortably drive their Rolls Royce cars out into the guilded land of la la land.

Highly recommended! ( )

Possible spoiler warning: Whilst I do not enter into plot description here, I do reveal whether or not this book has a happy ending.

In the opening half of The Outcast the author succeeds so well at depicting the dull, and sometimes oppressive, atmosphere of suburban family life in England in the late 1940s and 1950s that one almost couldn't summon up sufficient enthusiasm to carry on reading. I'm pleased that I did, since in the second half this book comes alive with domestic drama and intense emotion. Jones does not flinch from describing the terrible consquences of grief, excessive drinking, and over-bearing patriarchal authority within the family unit. Lots of bad things happen in this novel, but ultimately it has that most unfashionable thing in literary circles - a happy ending, and a sense that redemption is always possible, however far one might have strayed from acceptable behaviour. ( )

First of all, the publishers have chosen a terrible cover for the Vintage version of this book. It hints at a wartime romance, hankies being waved on train platforms, and generally suggests a book that I would have no interest in reading.

As it was for book group, I read it anyway, and was pleasantly surprised that it is actually about a young boy who loses his mother in a traumatic event, and how the people around him fail to help him cope with his emotions thereafter.

Set in three periods of Lewis's life, the book examines his relationships with his mother, and afterwards his stepmother, as well as his childhood friends and neighbours, none of whom seem able to understand how he has been affected by the loss.

The Home Counties setting of large homes with cooks, housekeepers and chauffeurs was completely alien to me however. I also wasn't convinced by his self-harming (did this happen in the 1950s? I don't know, but I didn't start to hear about it until the 1990s), and it reminded me a little of We Need To Talk About Kevin, but overall this is an engaging read and well-written. ( )