Home Boys
On sale
24th May 2018
Price: £9.99
‘Alex Wheatle writes from a place of honesty and passion with the full knowledge and understanding that change can only happen through words and actions’ – Steve McQueen
Four schoolchildren decide to run away from the the horrors of their everyday lives in a children’s home. Seeking asylum in the woods, they enjoy the exhilaration of freedom and the first flush of adolescence. Yet the forest slowly asserts its own power and what happens out in the wild will affect the four boys’ lives forever.
With his compelling narrative directness, rhythmic prose, and trademark humour, Alex Wheatle shows himself to be an author of real calibre, exposing the social stigma associated with children’s homes, and the horrifying psychological consequences of their impact on children at the most sensitive stage.
Never losing pace or failing to engage the reader at every moment, Home Boys is an unflinchingly honest depiction of disrupted childhoods.
Four schoolchildren decide to run away from the the horrors of their everyday lives in a children’s home. Seeking asylum in the woods, they enjoy the exhilaration of freedom and the first flush of adolescence. Yet the forest slowly asserts its own power and what happens out in the wild will affect the four boys’ lives forever.
With his compelling narrative directness, rhythmic prose, and trademark humour, Alex Wheatle shows himself to be an author of real calibre, exposing the social stigma associated with children’s homes, and the horrifying psychological consequences of their impact on children at the most sensitive stage.
Never losing pace or failing to engage the reader at every moment, Home Boys is an unflinchingly honest depiction of disrupted childhoods.
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Reviews
This is a brave, brutal story told with a shocking immediacy. Alex Wheatle has created a disturbing portrait of life in a children s home, in language which is plain, unsparing, and heart-rendingly poignant
Strong and meaningful
This is a book to read and nourish ... For it is a book which never gives up on its characters and, doing such, also never gives up on its readers
Impossible to put down
A gripping, horrifying and moving adventure story
I think I went through every emotion possible whilst reading this book and was bereft when I got to the end
With this groundbreaking work of fiction, Wheatle has produced what is truly the most moving book I have read this year
A beautifully written poetic portrayal of loyalty, friendship, and boyhood adventure
Alex Wheatle, always a gripping writer, has given us an important work about life as a kid in care in the 1970s and how brutality and abuse within the system can continue to distort and destroy lives down the years
Alex Wheatle writes from a place of honesty and passion with the full knowledge and understanding that change can only happen through words and actions