A friend loaned me The Outcast from her bookshelf because I said I felt like  a break from SFF (Which I do read a lot if, it being my genre, so to speak.)

She thought I might enjoy it and she was right, I did. The Outcast is about 1950s, middle class, semi-rural England. In particular, it’s about a boy, Lewis, whose mother drowns in a tragic accident which only he witnesses. The Outcast explores the consequences of this traumatic event for ten-year-old Lewis, consequences that are exacerbated because his father is emotionally withdrawn (perhaps as a result of serving in WW2, but perhaps not — this aspect is not really explored in the book) and also jealous of his son’s closeness to his mother.

The second major character in the book is Kit, the daughter of a neighbouring family who carries a torch for Lewis from a very young age. She is also on the receiving end of her father’s physical violence, a violence that the family conceals from the rest of their small community.

Although promoted as a novel that explores the stultifying social and family mores of the 1950s, I thought the The Outcast was more a character study of the profound and enduring effect tragedy has on Lewis, shaping his transition from child to young man. His story is juxtaposed against a society that, although narrow, is still recognizable in terms of the tendency to judge on scanty information and happily speculate where no sound information is available.

I also particularly liked Kit’s character. Although the victim of domestic violence she nonetheless actively resists giving in to victimhood, chiefly through strength of personality and a fierce intellect.

The Outcast is not a plotless story, but its strength and focus is the indepth exploration of its characters and their motivations. In the sense that they remain true to character throughout, I am not sure they can be said to develop in a literary sense — but they do feel very real.

The Outcast was Sadie Jones’ debut novel. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, it won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008.

Additional Information:

As mentioned, I read my friend’s copy of The Outcast, which was the mass market edition published by Vintage in 2008.