The Outcast: A Suspenseful Novel of Family Secrets and Redemptive Love in 1950s England (P.S.)

By Sadie Jones

Book Overview

Lewis Aldridge is just 10 years old when he loses his mother. Neglected by his distant father and new stepmother, he can't help but let the grief inside him grow. When he is 17, that pain explodes in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061374040
• ISBN13: 9780061374043
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Couldn't Put it Down

I read this book from start to finish in a three days. I read it while idling at red lights. I read it while waiting in front of my kids' school. I read it while my husband watched TV in bed next to me. I just couldn't put it down. Sadie Jones creates a protagonist we care deeply about. He is a damaged boy, then young man, dangerous and frightening, and we root for him desperately throughout the story. At each turn, as things go from bad to worse, we just want him to find his way, to find SOMEONE who will acknowledge him and make him feel he has a place on this earth. There is an improbable love story, and it is multi-layered and complicated (as all good love stories are). At the end, disaster looms and you just have to race through the pages to find out what will happen. The prose style takes a little getting used to, but it carries you along like a strong-flowing river. The novel really delivers. I had tears in my eyes at the end... and when I closed the last page, I was sorry it was over.

deep historical tale

In England the war is over and many veterans are coming home to their loved ones. Ten year old Lewis Aldridge struggles with having an adult male in the household with the return of his father Gilbert and the change in routines to a more stifling environment. However as both males adjust, the lad still enjoys picnics in the woods with his mom Elizabeth until the day she fails to return home with him having drowned. While Gilbert remains outraged in his grief over the next year, his remote father remarries Alice, who has no idea how to reach her stepson. A few years later, Lewis goes to prison for arson, having burned down a church. In 1957 now nineteen years old Lewis is free and returns home. Sixteen years old Kit Carmichael, daughter of the most influential family, is attracted to Lewis and wants to help him while her older sister twenty one years old Tamsin teases and flirts with him, which he assumes means she is attracted to him. Their abusive father, who is his dad's boss, simply wants to destroy him. This deep historical tale may take place in the Happy Days of the 1950s in England, but has incredibly deep relevance today as the family dynamics is explored. First the issue of returning veteran being away for extended war duty shows how complex life can be whether it is fifteen months deployment to Iraq or fighting for several years on the continent. Second there is the parental abuse of the father hitting his wife and Kitty as if he had the divine right to do so, which leaves an angry Lewis feel helpless. Finally there is the alcoholism of Gilbert and Alice that isolates Lewis even further. With THE OUTCAST ironically as the center to all these social issues, Sadie Jones provides a powerful look at the dark side of families circa 1957 but still germane in 2008. Harriet Klausner

Disturbing, poignant and lovely to read

Gail Cooke's review is spot on, so I won't rehash the plot. Jones' prose is lovely. She's particularly good at the imagery of childhood, at once so practical and fanciful. Beautifully written, emotionally stunning and very highly recommended.