International award-winner David Almond draws on memories of his early years in Tyneside, England, for a moving coming-of-age novel, masterfully told.
A gentle visionary coming of age in the shadow of the shipyards of northern England, Dominic Hall is torn between extremes.
On the one hand, he craves the freedom he feels when he steals away with the eccentric girl artist next door, Holly Stroud—his first and abiding love—to balance above the earth on a makeshift tightrope. With Holly, Dom dreams of a life different in every way from his shipbuilder dad's, a life fashioned of words and images and story.
On the other hand, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to the brutal charms of Vincent McAlinden, a complex bully who brings out Dom's darker desires, awakening something wild and reckless and killing in his nature.
In a raw and beautifully crafted bildungsroman, David Almond reveals the rich inner world of a boy teetering on the edge of manhood, a boy so curious and alive and open to impulse that we fear for him and question his balance—and ultimately exult in his triumphs.
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“Sense of place is everything in Almond’s coming-of-age novel, set in the 1950s shipyards of Tynsdale, England, and Richard Halverson’s heavily accented narration is spot-on. While he makes use of minor dialect changes to distinguish between a variety of characters of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, Halverson spends most of the novel giving voice to aspiring writer and son of a ship-builder Dominic Hall. Halverson switches effortlessly between a voice of maturity looking back on childhood and the voice of a child experiencing awe, pain, love, and trauma. In narrating conversations, Halverson illuminates subtle changes in relationships by making use of pauses that are heavy with the weight of what is left unsaid. A rich and rewarding listen. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
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