What I Did

(Paperback)

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Description

A boy runs across a busy road.

His father smacks him.

A passer-by intervenes...

When Billy Wright runs across a busy road, his world is altered irreversibly, even though he doesn't realise it at the time. Because a passer-by has stopped to watch the scene. She has seen Billy's father catch up with him and smack him. Within an hour she has informed social services, plunging the family into a living nightmare which begins with a social worker's visit and escalates through a series of misunderstandings until the family is threatened to its core.

What I Did is a powerful novel about the unseen consequences of a split second decision, about a childhood interrupted and the lengths we go to to protect the ones we love. It is frequently heartbreaking, blackly funny, and utterly compelling.

Reviews

I loved it! Staggeringly good. Terrifyingly good - Lisa Jewell

Excellent . . . Dark but uplifting - Alex Preston

Hugely impressive, gripping, funny and thought provoking - Emily Barr

This is family life at its most believable: warm and messy, bored and raging. WHAT I DID is every parent's nightmare, but will make you burst out laughing too. I loved it. - Emma Donoghue, author of ROOM

Gripping, hilarious and tender, this is, without doubt, one of the books of the year - Daily Mail

An amusing and unsettling story - Saturday Guardian

The novel brilliantly captures parent-child relations in the raw and the emotions that even the most experienced social worker can't tame - Independent

[A] fine, challenging novel - Mail on Sunday

Author Bio

Christopher Wakling has worked as a teacher, lawyer and travel writer. Educated at Oxford, he now lives in Bristol with his wife and children.