From the bestselling author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Shy is a novel about guilt, rage, imagination and boyhood. It is about being lost in the dark, and realising you are not alone.
''Max Porter is one of my favourite writers in the world.'' George Saunders ''Beautiful and haunting.'' Kevin Barry ''The strangest, most beguiling and affecting of all his books.'' Ian Rankin ''A miracle of language.'' Irish Times 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.
''An act of humanity and grace, heightened by its distinctive form and artistry.'' Telegraph
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2019 Not far from London, there is a village. This village belongs to the people who live in it and to those who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England's mysterious past and its confounding present. It belongs to Mad Pete, the grizzled artist. To ancient Peggy, gossiping at her gate. To families dead for generations, and to those who have only recently moved here. But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort who has woken from his slumber in the woods. Dead Papa Toothwort, who is listening to them all. Chimerical, audacious, strange and wonderful - a song to difference and imagination, to friendship, youth and love, Lanny is the globally anticipated new novel from Max Porter.
In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. This extraordinary debut, full of unexpected humour and emotional truth, marks the arrival of a thrilling and significant new talent.
« Pour moi, la poésie, telle qu'il m'est à coeur de m'en exprimer et tout à la main, c'est un combat existentiel, un combat pour le libre arbitre, la sauvegarde d'encore un peu d'amour, une émancipation possible de l'individu dans toute collectivité.
Tout être humain a droit à sa propre histoire et dans l'Histoire. Je m'en remets souvent de la mienne sensiblement au ciel dans un espoir de tolérance, de commisération. »
