Kieron Smith, Boy

Synopsis

An award-winning novel of urban boyhood: &“No other . . . comes as close as this to Catcher in the Rye.&” —The Literary Review A Man Booker Prize–winning author brings us inside the head of a young boy in a novel that offers a &“splendid evocation of childhood in mid-20th-century Glasgow&” (The Washington Post). Here is the story of a boyhood in a large industrial city during a time of great social change. Kieron grows from age five to early adolescence amid the general trauma of everyday life—the death of a beloved grandparent, the move to a new home. A whole world is brilliantly realized: sectarian football matches; ferryboats on the river; the unfairness of being a younger brother; climbing drainpipes, trees, and roofs; dogs, cats, sex, and ghosts—all rendered in the unmistakable perspective of youth, offering &“a vivid reminder that childhood is a foreign country&” (Kirkus Reviews). &“A book full of the wonder of growing up . . . A magnificent and important novel.&” —Financial Times &“Recalls the modernist experiments of Joyce and Woolf . . . Kelman is a writer of singular will and sincerity.&” —The New York Times Book Review &“As an urban coming-of-age, the novel also reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. . . . This funny, sad and deeply entrancing novel works as dreams do: by seduction, by raising strange spirits, and by delivering a world entire. It represents a triumph for Kelman, as hard and uproarious as a Glasgow Saturday night.&” —The Washington Post &“Kelman&’s raw, blunt narration drives home all of Kieron&’s loneliness, sadness and feelings of inadequacy. If you can roll with the Scots dialect, the narrative is rewarding, bleak and marvelous.&” —Publishers Weekly

Copyright:

2009

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780547541174

Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Date of Addition:

12/16/24

Copyrighted By:

status in your country.

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.