Shy - Max Porter

nA novel about guilt, rage, imagination, and boyhood, about being lost in the dark and learning you're not alone n nThis is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy. n nYou mustn't do that to yourself Shy. You mustn't hurt yourself like that.

n nHe is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him. n nGot your special meds, nutcase? n nHe is escaping Last Chance, a home for very disturbed young men, and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past, and the heavy question of his future.

n nThe night is huge and it hurts. n nIn Shy, Max Porter extends the excavation of boyhood that began with Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and continued with Lanny.

• But here he asks: How does mischievous wonder and anarchic energy curdle into something more disturbing and violent?

Shy is a bravura, lyric, music-besotted performance by one of the great writers of his generation. n n nEditBuildn