On leaving school a sixteen-year-old boy goes to live with his uncle on a remote Welsh hill-farm. His aunt has recently committed suicide after losing her livestock in the foot-and-mouth epidemic and his uncle has turned, once again, to the bottle. The boy is an innocent, a spiritual savant; a shaman. In one of his ecstatic trances the boy learns that he has an appointed role in the world, which he must discover for himself. During an episode of brutal and climactic violence, he does exactly that. "Runt" is a powerful, disturbing and moving novel that reinvigorates the language of fiction and illuminates domestic tragedy with a penetrating epic light.
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About the Author
Niall Griffiths was born in Liverpool in 1966 and now lives in Wales. He is the author of six novels: Grits, Sheepshagger, Kelly + Victor, Stump, Wreckage, and Runt.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a beautiful, amazing, glorious book,
This review is from: Runt (Paperback)
I was absolutely laid out by the incredible telling of this story, in the perfect voice, never out of character and I usually detest first-person narrative but it is so beautifully, skillfully done here, it's what other writers might dream of doing in a first-person narrative. From the time I read the first paragraph to the time I put it down, way too early, I was completely immersed in this character and this story. It's hard to read, it's frequently uncomfortable but it reads like something real, like real life, like experiences and feelings in people that matter and mean something and the rare characters that seem to matter like real people, no personality-free, two-dimensional cut outs here.
I've only read a little Niall Griffiths but I've noticed that his stories are never what I think they're going to be when I start them, that they always surprise me and I never really know what's going to happen, even when I think I do. I really like that, because I've read a lot of books and if they're the slightest bit hack, I know it right away. I don't think I'll ever pick up a Niall Griffiths book and think that.
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