ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Niall Griffiths is an English author of novels and short stories, set predominantly in Wales. His best known works include his first two novels "Grits" and "Sheepshagger", and his 2003 publication "Stump" which won the Wales Book of the Year award.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Told through the boy's internal monologue of beauty and damage, 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; his uncle sees him as a shaman. An unwitting repository of folk memory, he is a boy from the margins: barely educated but possessed of extraordinary insights; barely literate but able to speak a language of his own - a poetry laden with Pagan and Christian myth. He is unaware that he is gifted, unaware of what he knows in general - which is probably for the best since the enormity of his knowledge, were it to be understood, would crush him. During 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.

So the boy is conveniently off to New Zealand again this week, so he is getting loaded up with books for my NZ BCers!
This one is off on its travels for fulfil an Australasian Wishlist Tag

MY REVIEW:
There just aren't enough books like this one!
Loved being in rural Wales for this story of boyhood and pure raw emotion.
This book is described as being of "limited vocabulary" which equates to being the story of a boy who is pushed out by his own mother for her abusive boyfriend, to her alcoholic Uncle who is getting over the suicide of his wife.
This voice of a 16 year old boy, may seem so much younger, but its just beautiful. Just so so beautiful.

Received as part of the Australasia wishlist taggame, this looks interesting.

Rewarding, a coming of age, story of redemption.
The thoughts of a 16 year old, rarely speaks, but what a thinker and observer of the crazy world he lives in, abuse, violence, first sexual experience, the landscape of the mountains of Wales and a frightened rural community.

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