Customer Reviews

Coram Boy

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4 star:		(1)
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This is an award winning book set around the philanthropic venture of one Captain Thomas Coram, who set up a home for orphans in the 18th century - the Foundling Hospital. Thomas Coram and his orphanage were quite real - it was said to be the first incorporated charity in the World. Other characters in the book are also real (such as George Frideric Handel , although the story is, of course, fictional.

Nevertheless the story feels very real. It is the kind of story that could almost certainly have happened, and no doubt something akin to the events here did happen. Fictional faces tell us real and painful stories. This book read like a modern day Dickens. Indeed, the author also makes good use of the Dieckensian coincidence. Of course Dickens was describing current events for him, whereas this story is history - but what a wonderful and well researched historical tale this is.

The story starts in Gloucester with Otis who takes babies and money, saying he will deliver them to Coram's Foundling Hospital. However he murders most of the children. Meanwhile we follow the lives of two young people as they grow to maturity, before leaping forward 9 years to follow the lives of two friends in the hospice. There are many story threads here, but they all twine together to make something beautiful.

This book is suitable for young adult readers - perhaps 11+. I would hesitate to recommend to younger children because of some of the themes. On the other hand, the writing is sensitively done.

Having seen it at least a few dozen times on Broadway, The show plays much better on its feet than on the page, after all don't most scripts?
It's gothic darkness, and layered secrecy is very romantic and enthralling for an audience that is enticed by historical melo-drama. The show itself asks you to suspend reality. So no, not all of it is fact based. As it is based on a young adults novel, that should be an indication of the editing process it has undergone. It is a good read if you are a theater student or someone considering this show in their repertory. If you are considering reading it for the story, I would buy the young adult novel that the script was based on.

If 'Gothic' means you forget all about accuracy and plausibility, then this book certainly merits the title.
It's quite an enjoyable read, at least till about three-quarters of the way through, when the inaccuracies, anachronisms and implausibilities got too much for me.
Inaccuracies: e.g. sowing wheat and barley in July, slave trade shipping Africans to England and then to the Americas, England in the midst of continual wars (had in 1741 just finished twenty years of peace, in fact.)
Anachronisms: eg top hats, sovereigns, docks, shotguns, a tin roof ...
Implausibilities: someone living in the opulence of the Ashbrooks would have a steward to look after the estate, and not need to train his son to do it. Riding shotgun (in fact it wouldn't be a shotgun) on a coach wouldn't be the sort of job you'd entrust to a half-wit.
I'd like it better if it was Bjharrn on the planet of Sppljorrk. But the Disneyland eighteenth century is too much to swallow.