lyzadanger’s review: “Sensitive, evocative, sad and hopeful at the same moment. A brilliant novel about coming of age in early-80s England. Poor Jason Taylor, he’s 13, saddled with a boring name, and growing up in the west Midlands in Thatcherite 1982. Introspection is not a strong value in his family or acquaintances.

Still, Jason has sensual and sometimes magical adventures. He manages to write passable poetry (albeit under a pseudonym) and stay alive despite beatings and humiliation by his dreadful classmates. He weaves between a mature subtlety of thought and its opposite: slang-ridden, simplified boy-speak that belies his actual depth. It’s great.

Relationships around him crumple and fold and hurt. Families drink and fight. In his village, bigotry marauds as political concern and blind nationalism is the current trend. But it’s surrounded by mystical, beautiful green and hills.

The chapter entitled “Bridle Path” is especially brilliant, detailing a day’s trek on said path by Jason. It’s an Odyssey-like set of occurrences that makes you feel like you might well end up in Middle Earth.

One of the better reads of this year.”

Random House Trade Paperbacks (2007), Paperback, 304 pages
tags: fiction, novel, england, 1980s, bildungsroman, read, readin2007, 50 book challenge

Completed: 11/13/2007
***** (of 5)