  |
| "The Wrong Boy" reviewed in March issue of Uncut |
|
 |
posted by davidt
on Sunday February 04 2001, @11:00AM
English Martyr writes:
"The Wrong Boy" by Willy Russell was reviewed by Simon Goddard. It was given a 5 star rating (out of 5). Here's what he had to say about it:
Smiths-inspired debut novel from Educating Rita playwright -
(more)
After two decades as an award-winning dramatist, Russell finally gets round to that "difficult first novel", one which begins "Dear Morrissey". Considering the resilient social underdogs of Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine, that his fiction debut should focus on a teenage Smiths fan reminiscing on his problem childhood via letters to Mozzer as he reluctantly hitch-hikes to Grimsby isn't really so surprising. Russell excels at glorifying the downtrodden, and "Wrong boy" Raymond Marks is the ideal vessel for his idiosyncratic characterisation and priceless wit.
In terms of teenage angst, Raymond is more Holden Caulifield than Adrian Mole, his youth robbed by the therapists, doctors and do-gooders who stigmatise him as a demented pervert following the "flytrapping" scandal (brillliantly original, too weird to summerise!). Its the sporadic blackness of Russells narrative, a tragi-comic saga of single-parent traumas, mental illness and sexual abuse that keeps the page-turning speedometer at a healthy pace until the final revelatory plot twist.
From a Smiths fans perspective, though, he gets the lyric-quoting isolated arrogance spot on, Russell's research is occasionally sloppy; listing Hatful of Hollow as a song title is typical of a few errors destined to spark an influx of pedantic corrections to his publisher. Still, in the grand scheme these are minuscule gripes against an incredibly funny, devastatingly touching and delightful read.
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://website.lineone.net/~smilingontim/timstwin.htm
I must have submitted the story with an incorrect link.