Shy: THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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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 RankinThis 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.


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Review

'Max Porter is one of my favorite writers in the world. Why? Because he's always asking the most important questions and then finding ways - through innovative structures and that inimitable voice -of answering those questions soulfully, with his full attention, in ways that make the world seem stranger and more dear (or more dear because stranger). He gives his readers, in other words, bursts of new vision.' -- George Saunders

Max Porter has a way of writing unlike anyone else. I loved Shy. I finished it elated and tearful, joyful and terrified, changed by the journey. It moved me and surprised me and that is what I look for in my favourite artists. -- PJ Harvey

Shy is an act of humanity and grace, heightened by its distinctive form and artistry. -- Telegraph ― Luke Kennard

Shy is the strangest, most beguiling and affecting of all his books. -- Ian Rankin

A troubled boy's psyche is presented in a shattered mosaic that contains within it the hope of new forms and new beginnings - this is a beautiful and haunting book, and it captures with a great artistry the resonance and rhythms of its era. -- Kevin Barry

Shy is intensely vivid, dark and provocative. Max Porter's writing so striking, rich and evocative. Shy broke my heart and I loved him for it. -- Salena Godden

The troubled boy at the heart of this novel is full of rage and sadness but Max Porter finds tenderness and hope in him. Just beautiful. -- Mariana Enriquez

Max Porter excavates through the mess and tumult of life and of a mind, leaving us with the sharp clarity of poetry, and an emotional core of tender, beautiful prose. -- Andrew Macmillan

I kept thinking of Mrs Dalloway. The comparison seems utterly inappropriate, and yet where else had I experienced a character lift of the page in this way, with such scattered force? And yet also with such choral beauty. It's a prose-bomb, this book; brief and brilliant. -- Samantha Harvey

Living poetry-prose, pulsative, growing, coming of age, borderless in its thinking, boundaryless in its approach, a sonorous document that pulses with lived experience. -- Rachael Allen

There is no other writer quite like him, is there? His consistent ability to control the intersection of form and content, his precision, inventiveness, stylistic radiance and heart. The way Max reveals Shy's fragility without so much as a hint of sentimentality is masterful. It's a book that pushes back against the reductive nature of the now ubiquitous 'trauma plot' and, in doing so, more deeply honours the complexity of its subject. -- Nathan Filer

Max Porter returns with Shy, a short novel that packs a punch. The mind of a teenage boy bursts across the page as he escapes from a home for "disturbed young men" and ventures into the night. Empathetic and energetic, it's a furious damnation of modern Britain. ― i-D, Books to be excited for in 2023

There are few writers who can explore the psyche - and also the limits of language to describe it - with the lyricism and economy of Max Porter. The author of Lanny and Grief Is the Thing With Feathers returns with a new novel, Shy, in which we inhabit the mind of a troubled young man who has just left an institution for those who fit that particular description, and is on a one-way track to. salvation? Destruction? And just over 100 pages, it won't take long to find out. ― Esquire, Best Books of 2023

Porter's polyphonic tale reveals the inner workings of a troubled mind with measured empathy and humility. ― Mr Porter

Rattling out a fast snare rhythm above an undertow of bubbling, mournful sub-bass, SHY is full of soul, sweat and spunk - a sad, wild, beautiful, brave and funny journey through one struggling teenager's brain. ― Will Ashon --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

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. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

About the Author

Max Porter's first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, won the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers' Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. His second novel, Lanny, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He has previously worked as a bookseller and editor and has also written The Death of Francis Bacon, the short film All of this Unreal Time and the pamphlet It's Going to Be a Bright New Day. Max lives in Bath with his family. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Book Description

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. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Review

"[A] slender burst of Joycean prose. . . . There's an arresting quality to the narrative's frantic breaths of prose poetry and brief, fractured form. As an experiment in character seen from the inside out, [Shy] stands as a singular shoutout to lost boys everywhere."--Publishers Weekly

"Porter does a fine job of inhabiting the mind of a teenager in ways that may remind readers of David Mitchell's novel Black Swan Green, with all the confusion and lack of resolution that come with the territory. . . . Porter gets his bumbling, anomic antihero down to a T."--Kirkus Reviews

"Max Porter is one of my favorite writers in the world. Why? Because he's always asking the most important questions and then finding ways--through innovative structures and that inimitable voice--of answering those questions soulfully, with his full attention, in ways that make the world seem stranger and more dear (or more dear because stranger). He gives his readers, in other words, bursts of new vision."--George Saunders

"Max Porter has a way of writing unlike anyone else. I loved Shy. I finished it elated and tearful, joyful and terrified, changed by the journey. It moved me and surprised me and that is what I look for in my favorite artists."--PJ Harvey

"I kept thinking of Mrs. Dalloway. The comparison seems utterly inappropriate, and yet where else had I experienced a character lift of the page in this way, with such scattered force? And yet also with such choral beauty. It's a prose-bomb, this book; brief and brilliant."--Samantha Harvey

"Rattling out a fast snare rhythm above an undertow of bubbling, mournful sub-bass, Shy is full of soul, sweat, and spunk--a sad, wild, beautiful, brave, and funny journey through one struggling teenager's brain."--Will Ashon

"There is no other writer quite like Max, is there? His consistent ability to control the intersection of form and content, his precision, inventiveness, stylistic radiance, and heart. Shy, the boy, is wholly convincing. Brutally, beautifully so. The way he reveals Shy's fragility without so much as a hint of sentimentality is masterful."--Nathan Filer


--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


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Author
Max Porter
Publisher
Faber & Faber (4 April 2023)
Language
English
File size
4075 KB
Print length
133 pages
Page numbers source ISBN
1644452294
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Shy: THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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