The Outside Boy

(Paperback)

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Description

'A full-throated song of praise. I loved it' Sherman Alexie

Ireland, 1959. Young Christopher Hurley is a tinker, a Pavee gypsy, who roams with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. Christy carries with him a burden of guilt as well: his mother's death in childbirth.

The wandering life is the only one Christy has ever known, but when his grandfather dies, everything changes. His father decides to settle briefly, in a town, where Christy and his cousin can receive proper schooling. But still, always, they are treated as outsiders.

As Christy struggles with his new classmates, he starts to question who he is and where he belongs. But then the discovery of an old newspaper photograph, and a long-buried secret, changes his life for ever.

Reviews

A deeply moving and elegiac look at a vanishing culture... gorgeously written - Booklist

Some of the greatness of Angela's Ashes dampens these pages, maybe as much as is possible for an author for whom this is fiction, not memoir. Beautifully crafted scenes and characters keep the pages turning - Historical Novel Society

A poignant and magical tale

Author Bio

Jeanine Cummins is the author of the novels AMERICAN DIRT, THE OUTSIDE BOY and THE CROOKED BRANCH, and a true crime work, A RIP IN HEAVEN. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.