Description

Book Synopsis

A novel about guilt, rage, imagination, and boyhood, about being lost in the dark and learning you're not alone


This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.

You mustn't do that to yourself Shy. You mustn't hurt yourself like that.

He 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.

Got your special meds, nutcase?

He 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.

The night is huge and it hurts.

In 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.



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Shy

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£23.75

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RRP £25.00 – you save £1.25 (5%)

Order before 4pm today for delivery by Wed 7 Jan 2026.

A Hardback by Max Porter

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    View other formats and editions of Shy by Max Porter

    Publisher: Graywolf Press
    Publication Date: 02/05/2023
    ISBN13: 9781644452295, 978-1644452295
    ISBN10: 1644452294

    Description

    Book Synopsis

    A novel about guilt, rage, imagination, and boyhood, about being lost in the dark and learning you're not alone


    This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.

    You mustn't do that to yourself Shy. You mustn't hurt yourself like that.

    He 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.

    Got your special meds, nutcase?

    He 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.

    The night is huge and it hurts.

    In 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.



    EditBuild

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