Seventeen

(Hardback)

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'Engaging and engrossing, frank and frankly troubling, Seventeen is a book not easily forgotten' -Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

'So compelling and shocking that to read it is to have it seared on to you. I felt like I was there. As gripping a memoir as youll find' -David Whitehouse, author of About a Son

A truly impressive and important book - Ali Millar, author of The Last Days

'A vivid and moving story, grippinglytold' - Alex Renton, author of Stiff Upper Lip

'I was addicted to this book' - Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father

'Gripping [...] a powerful read' - Lucy Nichol, author of Parklife

Its 1992. Like every other seventeen-year-old boy, Joe has one eye on his studies, the other on his social life smoking, Britpop, girls. Hes looking ahead to a gap year full of travel and adventure before university when his teacher attractive, mid-thirties takes an interest in him. It seems likea fantasy come true.

For his final two years at school, he is bound to her, a woman twice his age, in an increasingly tangled web of coercion, sex and lies. Their affair, a product of complex grooming and a shocking abuse of authority, is played out in the corridors of one of Britains major private schools, under the noses of people who suspected, even knew, but said nothing.

Thirty years on, this is Joes gripping record of the illicit relationship that dominated his adolescence and dictated the course of his life for seventeen years. With a heady dose of nineties nostalgia and the perfectly captured mood of those final months at school, Joe charts the enduring legacy of deceit and the indelibility of decisions made at seventeen.

Reviews

Engaging and engrossing, frank and frankly troubling, Seventeen is a book not easily forgotten.

-- Karen Joy Fowler
'A fascinating and important dissection of coercion and abuse from deep within it, Joe Gibsons story is so compelling and shocking that to read it is to have it seared on to you. I felt like I was there. As gripping a memoir as youll find -- David Whitehouse
'An outstanding memoir' -- Lucy Nichol
'Seventeen is a remarkable book, Joe Gibson brings to life a shocking true story that's as compelling as it is urgent. In sharp, evocative prose, he places the reader at the heart of his teenage experience, showing the enduring after-effects of coercive control. An essential insight into the all too often hidden male experience of abuse' -- Ali Millar


'An amazingly courageous book' -- Lily Dunn
A vivid and moving story, grippinglytold. But, more to the point, Gibson's account of how attraction and obsession became exploitation and cover-up is a must-read for anyone involved in the care of adolescents. -- Alex Renton
A vivid and moving story, grippinglytold. But, more to the point, Gibson's account of how attraction and obsession became exploitation and cover-up is a must-read for anyone involved in the care of adolescents. -- Alex Renton
'Its both nostalgic and prescient, looking back at the past while unpacking how much of the present is dictated by the legacy of deceit that at the end of the authors adolescence.' * Vice *

Author Bio

Joe Gibson is a star of West End musicals, a concert pianist, ballet dancer, Formula 1 racing driver, and embarking on his PhD, in his dreams. In real life, hes still figuring out what he was meant to be. Life has not exactly gone to plan, but its been eventful. When hes not writing, Joe spends as much time as possible walking his ageing hound, looking for purpose and adventure. Joe Gibson is a pseudonym. Seventeen is his first book.