Boyhood

In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood 's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he imitated but could not respect, and a mother he both adored and resented, he picked his way through a world that refused to explain its rules, but whose rules he knew he must obey. Steering between these contradictions, Boyhood evokes the tensions, delights and terrors of childhood with startling, haunting immediacy. Coetzee examines his young self with the dispassionate curiosity of an explorer rediscovering his own early footprints, and the account of his progress is bright, hard and simply compelling.

In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he imitated but could not respect, and a mother he both adored and resented, he picked his way through a world that refused to explain its rules, but whose rules he knew he must obey. Steering between these contradictions, Boyhood evokes the tensions, delights and terrors of childhood with startling, haunting immediacy. Coetzee examines his young self with the dispassionate curiosity of an explorer rediscovering his own early footprints, and the account of his progress is bright, hard and simply compelling.

Cult author David Keenan's most mature, magical and profoundly realised novel yet, centred on a young boy in Glasgow 'A challenging, unconventional and daring piece of fiction ' THE INDEPENDENT 'Blending emotional sincerity with pulpy pastiche' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'Psychedelic post-punk fantasia' THE HERALD 'A swaggeringly imaginative, polyphonic novel' THE SCOTSMAN Boyhood opens in 1979 with the abduction of a young boy outside a Glasgow football ground. Nine years later, the boy's brother, Aaron Murray, is on the cusp of that moment when adolescence becomes adulthood. His own journey of grief and recovery has been guided by an angel, 'The Precious Gift' - perhaps imagined, perhaps real - who has blessed Aaron with redemptive, messianic powers. These have enabled him to see through the past and present, joining the dots between a vast array of characters; ballerinas, soldiers, poets, burlesque dancers, East End gangsters and the Vampire of Derry over five decades, all tied up in each other's fate. As Aaron's visions span cities and decades, from wartime Paris to the Troubles in the 1970s, Mexico City in the 1980s to - of course - Glasgow, Boyhood builds to an extraordinary, intense, climactic moment of redemption. A book of great joy, of laughter in the face of horror and delight in storytelling by the beloved and critically acclaimed author of This Is Memorial Device , Boyhood is a hymn to the resilience of youth, to the brave dreams of artists and lovers and a love letter to Glasgow - a city where magic happens. ' Slaps our dull, sterile culture hard across the face with a studded, uncompromising literary glove' - IRVINE WELSH 'Reading Keenan is like reclaiming your own imagination' - LIAS SAOUDI 'David Keenan is a wizard with words' - BENJAMIN MYERS 'Boyhood is a marvel. Impossible to sum up, it is a true novel, jumping with event and spectacle and showmanship - while speaking in its own extraordinary voice of tenderness and violence and pity and love, along with the gorgeous great fun and wonder of being alive' - KIRSTY GUNN

Cult author David Keenan's most mature, magical and profoundly realised novel yet, centred on a young boy in Glasgow 'A challenging, unconventional and daring piece of fiction ' THE INDEPENDENT 'Blending emotional sincerity with pulpy pastiche' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'Psychedelic post-punk fantasia' THE HERALD 'A swaggeringly imaginative, polyphonic novel' THE SCOTSMAN Boyhood opens in 1979 with the abduction of a young boy outside a Glasgow football ground. Nine years later, the boy's brother, Aaron Murray, is on the cusp of that moment when adolescence becomes adulthood. His own journey of grief and recovery has been guided by an angel, 'The Precious Gift' - perhaps imagined, perhaps real - who has blessed Aaron with redemptive, messianic powers. These have enabled him to see through the past and present, joining the dots between a vast array of characters; ballerinas, soldiers, poets, burlesque dancers, East End gangsters and the Vampire of Derry over five decades, all tied up in each other's fate. As Aaron's visions span cities and decades, from wartime Paris to the Troubles in the 1970s, Mexico City in the 1980s to - of course - Glasgow, Boyhood builds to an extraordinary, intense, climactic moment of redemption. A book of great joy, of laughter in the face of horror and delight in storytelling by the beloved and critically acclaimed author of This Is Memorial Device , Boyhood is a hymn to the resilience of youth, to the brave dreams of artists and lovers and a love letter to Glasgow - a city where magic happens. ' Slaps our dull, sterile culture hard across the face with a studded, uncompromising literary glove' - IRVINE WELSH 'Reading Keenan is like reclaiming your own imagination' - LIAS SAOUDI 'David Keenan is a wizard with words' - BENJAMIN MYERS 'Boyhood is a marvel. Impossible to sum up, it is a true novel, jumping with event and spectacle and showmanship - while speaking in its own extraordinary voice of tenderness and violence and pity and love, along with the gorgeous great fun and wonder of being alive' - KIRSTY GUNN