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 enlarge | Author: Sadie Jones
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (37) Used (77) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  84 reviews
Sales Rank: 107
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0099513420
EAN: 9780099513421
ASIN: 0099513420
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 81-84 of 84 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 AN ACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL STORY March 15, 2008
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
British writer Sadie Jones has given us an amazing debut novel, an achingly beautiful story of loss, love, and redemption. She astounds with her picture of 1950s England, a Surrey where emotions roil beneath a peaceful bucolic surface. With penetrating insight and scrupulously wrought studies she traces the characters as they develop. Her portrait of a young man who almost perishes in a painful search to define himself is especially moving.
The Outcast opens as 19-year-old Lewis Aldridge is released after serving a two-year prison term for setting fire to the village church. He goes home as, in truth, he has nowhere else to go. He's hoping for a new beginning but that is not to be.
Lewis's childhood is described in a flashback to when he was 10-years-old and adapting to his father, Gilbert, being home again after the war. Prior to that time Lewis and his mother, Elizabeth, enjoyed a happy, loving relationship. She doted on him and he returned her affection. Always a shadowy figure, Gilbert, once again takes his place in the home yet remains a puzzlement to the boy.
Soon a dreadful tragedy occurs that sends Lewis into a horrific spiral of isolation, violence, and self-mutilation. Elizabeth drowns on what had begun as a happy river side picnic for Lewis and his mother. Gilbert is little solace to the boy and remarries within a year. Alice, his second wife, knows little of how to reach Lewis who is ostracized by his childhood friends. Riddled with self-hatred his behavior becomes increasingly anti-social, and he withdraws even deeper into himself.
He is virtually shunned by other villagers save for Tasmin and Kit, daughters of Gilbert's employer, Dicky Carmichael. Kit is the youngest daughter who was a tag-along playmate in Lewis's childhood, often ridiculed by her older sister and ignored by the others. The Carmichael household is a dark one, harboring the secret of Dicky's domestic violence. "Dicky often hit Claire (his wife), it was a habit, and part of the pattern of the family, and it wasn't questioned between them at all."
Dicky's rage is soon vented on Kit as he beats her mercilessly, always slapping her hard across the face with an open hand so as not to leave any marks. He would beat her with a belt "until his arm felt quite tired."
Upon his return from prison Lewis finds no welcome or comfort in his home. "Very often Gilbert and Alice were fairly drunk by supper anyway, so it wasn't as bad as lunch, but sometimes the being drunk was worse - you could see what was underneath."
When Lewis learns of the abuse suffered by Kit he longs to rescue her, but feels he has no power to do so. Is it possible that one damaged individual can save another?
With lucid, affecting prose Sadie Jones carries us along to a startling yet satisfying conclusion.
Highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
A book to cherish February 23, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I love this book. For me it has it all. The characters are compelling and heartfelt. The story is powerful and poignant. The language is poetic and evocative. Jones's fluid prose is seemingless effortless. At the same time, I felt as though I was reading a thriller being propelled through the book. My heart was racing at the same time it was breaking. The characters are so real they feel as if they're going to walk off the page. Jones captures a place and time as well as a mood. But she doesn't do it through a lens of nostalgia. Rather she shines a harsh light into the dark recesses where hypocrisy hides, exposing its ugly truths.
Brilliant February 21, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
I was gripped from the very first page. Like watching a car crash in excruciatingly slow motion, this is an uncompromising tale of a communal failure to take responsibility for a troubled child. Moving, harrowing and deeply thought-provoking, it is an indictment of a certain stalwart Britishness that is all too resonant in the contemporary world. It is also a beautiful and unexpectedly optimistic love story. A must-read!
A fine debut novel February 12, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This dark and mysterious story opens with Lewis leaving prison to return home to his highly dysfunctional family comprising of his father Gilbert and his step mother Alice.
Lewis' mother drowned ten years ago during a picnic by the river, and Lewis was the only witness to her death.
The reader is taken back to Lewis' earlier life and the happy times he shared with his mother whilst his father was away during the War. Once Gilbert appears back on the scene it is clear that there are many problems within the family.
After his mother's death Lewis slowly changes into a very sad, lonely and disturbed child. There are episodes of violence, self harming, alcoholism, running away and sexual exploits.
Gilbert's employer Mr Carmichael and his family feature heavily in the novel - Dickie the overbearing violent father, Claire the mousy wife and Tamsin and Kit, his two daughters.
The novel soon moves to Lewis' adolescence, outlining why he went to prison and the events after he returns to his family.
Tamsin and Kit, whilst very different in character both play an important part in Lewis' coming of age, along with Jeanie - a sleazy nightclub hostess in London. It is Jeanie who shows Lewis the most love and understanding.
I enjoyed this moving coming of age story, which motors along almost thriller-like at times. Lewis is a very odd, disturbed character but very likeable.
The novel ends with some violent scenes and almost bitter-sweet tenderness.
I was left wondering what would happen next to Lewis, his family and his associates.
This is a fine debut novel by Sadie Jones, who I think we will see more of over the next few years.
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