This book packs a wallop and is definitely not for those who like soft, rosy stories.It is a book that will haunt me for awhile...a long while.As stated in the opening chapter, two people went into the woods for a picnic and only one returned!When young Lewis witnesses the drowning of his mother, his life spins way out of control while his father and the upper crust social strata of 1940-1950's England encourages and foments denial.When his father rapidly marries and Lewis' feelings are pushed further and further underground, he acts out in ways that harm himself and those around him.This is a graphic novel -- not in the sense of cartoon like pictures -- but in the reality of stark images written at the hand of a very adept and powerfully skilled author.Struggling to write a review about the awesome power of this book, I'll simply say it is a very compelling look at the phoniness of society. It is an incredible story of a young man struggling to find meaning in a very crazy environment.While those around him are quite comfortable in their accouterments, lavish lifestyles, dinner parties and social status, their out-of- reality behaviors literally drive Lewis crazy!While the adults emotionally and physically abuse their children behind closed doors, they quite comfortably drive their Rolls Royce cars out into the guilded land of la la land.Highly recommended!

Outcast was an AWESOME book!!!!! The "outcastS" are Brook and Stromfur. Find out yourself why! Although this book was great, the battle was not as exciting as I hoped.

First of all, the publishers have chosen a terrible cover for the Vintage version of this book. It hints at a wartime romance, hankies being waved on train platforms, and generally suggests a book that I would have no interest in reading.As it was for book group, I read it anyway, and was pleasantly surprised that it is actually about a young boy who loses his mother in a traumatic event, and how the people around him fail to help him cope with his emotions thereafter.Set in three periods of Lewis's life, the book examines his relationships with his mother, and afterwards his stepmother, as well as his childhood friends and neighbours, none of whom seem able to understand how he has been affected by the loss. The Home Counties setting of large homes with cooks, housekeepers and chauffeurs was completely alien to me however. I also wasn't convinced by his self-harming (did this happen in the 1950s? I don't know, but I didn't start to hear about it until the 1990s), and it reminded me a little of We Need To Talk About Kevin, but overall this is an engaging read and well-written.

Lewis Aldridge is a young boy in 1950s rural England when he witnesses his mother’s drowning. Within weeks, his distant father, Gilbert, has emptied their family home of her belongings; and within months, he is remarried to a much younger woman, Alice. The accident is not spoken about, and Lewis’s grief is never acknowledged. “The silence around her memory became brittle and dangerous and neither dared break it.” (69) Not surprisingly, Lewis is unable to cope. His grief manifests itself first as defiant behaviour; but as time goes on, the unresolved childhood trauma will take him to much darker places. Gilbert’s response to his son is cold, punishing aloofness; and Alice seeks solace in alcoholism. Finally, Lewis is completely lost:“I feel like I’m falling away from everything, like the world’s just far away from me. And dark. And I’m dark too. Just recently I don’t know if I can get back.” (233)Kit Carmichael instinctively knows what Lewis needs and seeks to help him. But Kit is a young girl and herself the victim of a cruel and abusive father. Dicky Carmichael, also Gilbert’s boss, detests Lewis and forbids Kit’s association with him. Lewis’ descent accelerates, aided in no small measure by the deliberate ignorance of 1950s society as concerned the “private” matters of mental illness, alcoholism, and domestic violence. Jones’ debut novel is impressive; her spare and to-the-point style suits her purpose well. The Outcast is a compelling read, the enduring gift of which, for me, is the reminder of the residual damage which results from a society’s chosen ignorance.“If one didn’t mention a thing afterwards, it was as if it hadn’t happened.” (75)

I had never heard of this book until it was selected as a book group read. The plaudits on the back cover suggested it was written in a similar style to ‘Atonement’ so, having loved that book, I was keen to read this.The premiseUnder the neat façade of the church-going, lunch-attending 1950s middle classes, rural life is full of familial abuse and misery. Lewis Aldridge, returning from jail at the tender age of nineteen, is frustrated by the polite hypocrisies of this world. A social outcast who is convinced he is broken, his actions quickly grow wild. Kit Carmichael, four years younger, has always adored Lewis. However, in her desire to help him, she will expose other secrets to public view…The openingAfter a prologue describing Lewis’ difficult return from prison, the narrative joins Lewis at age seven when his father is demobbed. This is a critical point in Lewis’ life and for years afterwards he defines his life into two sections: before and after his father returned home. Gilbert brings a ‘stuffiness’ with him that Lewis and his mother resist, but tragedy soon divides Lewis’ life into another before-and-after.The prologue sets the style for the whole novel: thoughtful, painful, somehow separate. What could be simply a clumsy cliffhanger – why was Lewis in prison? Is he dangerous? – is actually an effective introduction to Lewis’ psyche. Given the events of this chapter and the length of time Lewis was in jail I felt that it was fairly easy to guess what he had done anyway, so it doesn’t create intense suspense. Instead, the focus is on how uneasy Lewis feels about his place in this world.My thoughtsI found the premise of the novel interesting, although it is certainly not a book I would have selected myself, mostly because I’m so busy trying to keep up with the work of authors I already know I like! This isn’t a new topic (secretly abusive middle class families) but it is handled very well in this book.I found the 1950’s setting was neatly evoked through small details and was convincing without the need for layers of description. In fact, Jones uses description sparingly throughout: it is always purposeful, which I liked, and gives the narrative coherence rather than being a diversion.This is Jones’ first novel but she has been a screenwriter for fifteen years and this novel has clearly benefitted from her background: it ‘flows’ cleanly from beginning to end. Characters are swiftly delineated, minor details gain significance, and the reader experiences the point of view of several characters, including Lewis, Kit and some rather less sympathetic figures. These changes are managed very smoothly and the actual reading experience is very easy.When the tragedy occurred early on, I found Lewis’ responses utterly convincing. This worked well to create a bond between the reader and the character which allowed me to develop sympathy for Lewis that sustained my involvement in the rest of the novel. For a book like this to work you have to care deeply about the central protagonist. Fortunately, Jones has handled the narrative in such a way that it is impossible not to feel for Lewis.This does mean that his father, Gilbert, comes across at points as being almost inhuman in his harshness and some critics have suggested that Jones misses a trick by failing to explain his cold behaviour. I would argue that his behaviour is adequately explained by the era and his time spent at war. Besides which, developing more sympathy for Gilbert would surely have reduced feeling for Alice (his new, young wife) and Lewis.Perhaps a more significant problem is the portrayal of Dicky Carmichael (Kit’s father), who also lacks an explicit justification for his rather more brutal approach. However, he is essentially a bully who is enabled by the social mores of the period. Once again, this lack of development of his character means that we view him from Kit’s perspective and it enhances our sympathy for her and our sense of horror at the hypocrisy in this society. I do not see these omissions as flaws in Jones’ writing; rather I think they are sensible decisions which focus a reader’s sympathy on the children, who gradually become a symbol of hope.Both fathers become more distasteful as the novel develops and their strictures (Gilbert) and behaviour (Dicky) become more explicitly dictatorial and abusive. Jones’ gradual development of their characters means that neither becomes simply a caricature and their actions are shocking without shaking the reader out of the world Jones has created.A warningWithout wishing to reveal too much of the plot, I feel readers should be warned that a self-harm theme develops in this book. While scenes depicting harm are not gratuitous, they may well make some readers feel very uncomfortable. Personally, I did find these scenes quite difficult to read and I had to put the book down and leave it for a few minutes sometimes before continuing. Obviously this will not affect all readers, but I felt that some might appreciate being made aware of this aspect of the book.ConclusionsThis is easy to read in the sense that the narrative flows very smoothly. It can be quite difficult to read in the sense that the protagonist is in a lot of emotional pain throughout much of the book. I found this to be a quietly compelling read with a suitable ending. (I would have quite liked an epilogue, but the ending is fitting and could be viewed as powerful / rather melodramatic.) The main characters are very sympathetic (but, crucially, not spineless) and you really care about how their lives will develop. The claustrophobia of village life is effectively evoked, as is the enormous power our families have over us. Definitely worth reading and I will be on the lookout for ‘Small Wars’, her second novel.

When The Outcast opens it’s 1957 and 19 year old Lewis Aldridge has just been released from two years in prison. He is returning home, the outskirts of London, to his father and stepmother, neither of whom wants him. The rest of the book is the haunting story of Lewis’ life, before and after this point, as the author weaves the story by moving back and forth in time, developing a narrative with tension and suspense that had me holding my breath and furiously turning pages.Lewis’ story is one of repression and loneliness. As a ten-year-old, he watches helplessly as his mother drowns in a river close to their home and without her to anchor him, he is lost. His father, Gilbert, marries a much younger woman, only a few short months later. Lewis struggles to fit in and control his anger, but he is a child in need of extensive counseling, and none is offered him.In the meantime, his father’s influential boss, Dicky Carmichael, is revealed as an abusive bully who is systematically beating his younger daughter, Kit. Lewis and Kit are unwitting partners in trying to escape their individual nightmare existences. And Lewis’ stepmother, Alice, has turned into a public drunk who is making sexual advances on him. It’s hard for a guy to keep his head up under these circumstances. Lewis does try, but the cards are stacked against him. My heart went out to him. Sadie Jones paints such a sympathetic character, flaws and all that I found myself wanting desperately for him to succeed. In the end, we’re left with hope, Lewis is left with hope. He has a future that could never have been predicted early on in the narrative. Sadie Jones produced a knock-out debut novel. Her spare prose, told with unnerving realism make for a riveting read that reveals the strait-laced life of the fifties wasn’t all it appeared to be. Very highly recommended.

I finished The Outcast by Sadie Jones, shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008. It is a very good book, a very perceptive study of a boy rejected by one self centered member of his village after another, ganged up on by bullies thinking everything that is wrong in life is his fault, and being assured that that is true. His counterpart is a young girl from a wealthy family but with the same familial, though not societal rejection. The results of evil are demonstrated but not the cause. Why should Lewis's father reject him from the age of 7 onward, did war deaden his feelings or does the man have none? Why does Dicky Carmichael abuse only part of his family, and why does the family condone it? Why do people get so much more enjoyment from expressing hatred and conformity than love, individuality and humanity? Is it original sin? Can only religion answer these questions? Not in this book, religion comes off as equally self absorbed with the rest of the village. Sadie Jones doesn't discuss cause just effects. She does that well, but it's a mighty oppressive book.

This debut novel opens in 1957 London, as Lewis Aldridge, a 19 year old from the northern suburb of Waterford, is released from prison after serving a two year sentence. No one comes to greet him, and with no practical skills and nowhere to go, he chooses to return to the small town that has been distrustful of him since his mother's disappearance a decade earlier. Secrets abound in Waterford, where social appearances are far more important than genuine love and respect, and Lewis' reputation as a pariah and his continued troubles at home and in the community cause him to become progressively unrattled.Lewis is befriended by Kit Carmichael, a younger girl who has always admired him. However, her father is Lewis' father's employer, a respected but abusive man who despises Lewis and threatens Kit and his older daughter, Tamsin, to avoid the wayward boy. As tensions build, Kit becomes the only person who can communicate with Lewis, whose own father adds to his increasingly unstable behavior.The Outcast was a brilliant page turner for the first 2/3 of the book, with its realistic though disturbing portrayal of the lives and secrets in a small town community in postwar England, and the characters of Lewis, Kit and others were compelling. Unfortunately, the last 1/3 of the novel doesn't meet the same standard of excellence. However, this was still a very good novel, and one that I would strongly recommend.