Customer Reviews

Out Backward (P.S.)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Yorkshire lonely teenager Sam Marsdyke was strongly told to drop out of school when he was accused of attempted rape; he left the classroom and no charge, not even assault, was filed against him. He lives and works on the family farm along side his acrimonious angry father and his submissive silent mother. Increasingly the area and the central village are being gentrified by wealthy Southerners to the dismay of generational long timers like Sam's outraged old man.

Sam sees fifteen years old Josephine Reeves, who has moved with her family from London onto the adjoining farm. Already hearing about Sam's scandalous incident, her father warns Sam to stay away from his daughter or else. Still the two teens becomes friends even as Sam stalks her sitting for hours on the nearby hill to catch a glimpse of his beloved. Jo encourages him to risk more. Finally she decides to run away and persuades Sam to accompany her; not that it took much. On their trek nothing goes right until Jo insists he let her go home, but he refuses.

This is an astonishing disturbing look at two characters; one might be a sociopath manipulating the other, but who is the deranged one as Sam seems obvious but Jo seemingly has cleverly maneuvered him to her bidding, or has he been the one in control. The stunning stark cover enhances the sense of doom while the local dialect adds to the overall tension of an increasingly creepy feeling that this is not going to end well. Fans need to set aside plenty of time because this one sitting read will grip the audience with the obsess need to know who, if either or both, are left standing.

Harriet Klausner

Dense yet totally absorbing tale told from the idiosyncratic perspective of a disaffected and delusional young man. Dark and lovely in its detail.

A great story in a fabulous setting, with a main character who is unforgettable. I don't think I've ever read such a dark story with the amount of humor that is sprinkled into this one.

The use of heavy Yorkshire dialect is part of what makes this a great book, not the other way around as one reviewer opined. The character of Sam would be utterly unrecognizable if it weren't for his vocabulary. Most of the words that are unknown to Americans can easily be discerned from the surrounding context, or just look them up on Urban Dictionary. I especially enjoyed the way Sam gave pet names to everyone and everything, like Chickenhead and Hoble-Hop. It emphasizes the childlike qualities that it seems underlie many mentally unstable people.

I definitely recommend this book.

Sam's is a truly marvelous voice -observant, kind, shrewd, funny, paranoid,confused and heart-stoppingly terrifying. It is easy to understand why Ross Raisin has made such a splash in the UK with this, his debut novel. I too look forward very much to his next.

and if he did i would buy his next book immediately. i read out backward two years ago and it has never left me. i even wrote a song based upon it.

I can kind of understand where, and why it was written the way it was. Though, I still don't know why, throughout the whole book, Ross didn't feel the need to use quotation marks whenever someone speaks. The heavy British slang was to give the characters more depth, the bouncing around, seemingly jumbled, way of moving from one point of the story to another, was to give the reader a glimpse into the often twisted mind of Sam Marsdyke. But just because I see reason behind it, doesn't mean I like it.

All of this combined to make the book hard to read. The slang was the typical "Oi" instead of "Hey" to give everyone the British accent. But it didn't stop there... In British terminology what we Americans call a flashlight, they across the pond call a torch. The book was crammed full of these types of words. Case in point, before you even get five words into the book Sam calls people "Daft sods".
Most of the terms you figure out right away based on their use, others you have to wait until they pop up later in the book, and are used in a way you can understand.
And then Sam develops a language of his own, referring to Josephine's father as "Chickenhead", and some other people as "tomatoes". Sometimes you're left scratching your head.
Sam's shift from one place to another is hard to follow at times, to the point where you don't know if he's dreaming it or not. At times it seems like there are hours between one point to another that are just lost. Just when you start to relax and find some fluidity, it changes gears and you're left to regather.
Then there's pseudo conversations that Sam has in his head. Those are at least easy to spot when he has them with say, animals, the chickens and sheep. Not so easy when he has imaginary conversations with the towns folk.

While it is clear during the course of the story that Sam is disturbed, I wouldn't exactly say he was malevolent. He kills a chicken for looking at him wrong?
There are little instances like these all through, where you see just how twisted Sam thinks. Things that he finds funny are creepy. It goes a lot deeper than just being an anti-social cast out. I think Sam has more pointers leading to Psychopath than Sociopath. He doesn't seem to feel much remorse for anything, or see anything wrong with what he does.
But I think upbringing does have a lot to do with his personality. At one point in the story you learn about a bucket in the backyard, where every summer if the cat or dog has babies and there is no need of them, or they are runts, they get drowned in this bucket. And it's Sam's job to hold the lid down until they die. It sounds like Sam's father is a cold individual, without many feelings himself.

I really didn't like the way it ended, as it still left Sam as a threat to society. Sam doesn't seem to have learned much about morals, or even accountability for his actions. I'm not entirely sure that at the end of it all, Sam even sees that he did anything wrong to Josephine.

I'm glad I only paid $1 for it at my local bookstore.
Overall I don't recommend this book.