The Boy Who Went Away

By Eli Gottlieb

Book Overview

Denny Graubart, child-narrator and "domestic surveillance expert," is having some terrible suspicions about his mother and autistic brother. It's the 1960s, aka the Diagnostic Dark Ages of Autism, and while his mother struggles to keep his brother out of an institution, signs of something more disturbing are beginning to emerge before young Denny's eyes. Battered by his own tragicomic sexual awakening during a long, hot summer, Denny will eventually find his most horrified suspicions about his family confirmed. A powerfully drawn portrait of two brothers locked into an asymmetrical childhood and a family struggling against a weight of medical ignorance, The Boy Who Went Away is "shockingly, electrically alive" (Phillip Lopate). It is also an indispensable bookend to Gottlieb's Best Boy, which recounts the impact of autism on the same family from the other side, many years later, in the voice of a middle-aged autistic man.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1631490923
• ISBN13: 9781631490927
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Ever had a difficult brother?

Sad, and yet at times almost hilarious, "The Boy who went away" sheds new light on the life of troubled families. Absolutely remarkable. A must read

An excellent novel

This is a touching and beautifully written book about a troubled young man and his family. The author succeeds brilliantly at two very difficult things: 1) he manages to write believably from the point of view of a disturbed teenager, making him both sympathic and--at times--difficult to take; 2) he creates an honest portrait of motherly love, with all its hopes and despairs. It's one of the best characterizations of a mother in modern American fiction, in fact. I highly recommend this book.

An insightful and witty portrait of a family

The author pulls off two very difficult things with this intriguing and beautifully written novel: 1) he writes from the point of view a disturbed kid, managing somehow to make us both sympathetic toward the young man and appalled by some of the things he does; 2) he gives us one of the most brilliant and detailed portraits of motherly love--blind, crazy, desperate--in modern American fiction. In addition to all this, the book is also quite witty. Highly recommended.

Gottlieb's insights are presented in a manner that is rare.

Gottlieb writes intimately lletting the reader in all the way. The book goes far deeper than a presentation of various components/people -- it provides a mirror for all who have grown up with a mother who unknowingly abuses the entire family in order to be comfortable with herself -- all under the guise of love. It's a healing experience if you refrain from focusing on the superficial--gottlieb puts the choice in the hands of the reader. The pain is sweet.

Authentic recapture of emerging adolescence in 1967.

This wonderful coming-of-age book captures with incredible authenticity what it was like to be entering adolescence in the mid-1960's in the midst of a family in turmoil. "The Boy Who Went Away" has the rare quality of being appropriate for both parents and teens to read; it should take its place on shelves alongside Tobias Wolfe's "This Boy's Life" and even J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." Elisa Davis