Slum Boy
A Portrait
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Octopus Publishing Group
Published:29th Feb '24
£20.00
Available for immediate dispatch.
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback - Signed First Edition£20.00(9781914240829-SF)
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'This is a heart-breaking story, beautifully told. I hope it finds a million readers' - Andrew O'Hagan
'What a brave and powerful story. If you like Shuggie Bain and Damian Barr then Slumboy is for you' - Lemn Sissay
'Compulsively readable, it's Dickensian in its rich cast of Glaswegian characters' - Patrick Gale
John MacDonald must find his mother.
Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return.
A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her. His mind is consumed with images and memories he can't process or understand, which his eventual adoptive parents silence out of fear as he grows into a young man within a strict Catholic and Romany Gypsy community.
This memoir is about how John found his way to his true identity, Juano Diaz, and how, against all odds, his unstoppable love for his mother sets him f
What a brave and powerful story. If you like Shuggie Bain and Damian Barr then Slumboy is for you -- Lemn Sissay
Fans of (Douglas) Stuart and (Damian) Barr will pounce on this startling debut. Compulsively readable, it's Dickensian in its rich cast of Glaswegian characters -- Patrick Gale
Powerful and beautifully written... Juano Diaz's elegant and heartbreaking memoir immediately brings to mind Douglas Stuart's Booker-winning Shuggie Bain * Guardian *
ISBN: 9781914240829
Dimensions: 234mm x 165mm x 25mm
Weight: 440g
288 pages