Haven't we all been there? (The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell)

Member Name: QueenElf

Product:	The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
Date:	20/03/07 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: BIG BOLD & A HEART OF GOLD.

Disadvantages: This is not chick-lit.

Haven’t we all been there?


I’ll be totally honest, until I picked this book up I had never heard of Willy Russell before. How I never got to read about him I will never know. Born in Liverpool and rising through the mists of obscurity, he’s a successful playwright with some award-winning plays, later made into films. Who could ever forget the amazing “Educating Rita” and “Shirley Valentine?” From stage to screen and then to books, this talented man brings his lowly background into play with this novel.

The Plot.

In a nutshell, this is a story about a young boy who through no fault of his own becomes entrapped in an adolescent game with another fourteen pre-pubescent boys. Our hero, Raymond Marks, has found a way to play some silly games with flies (real ones) and a certain part of the male anatomy. Caught by the headmaster, Raymond can shop his friends or take the blame on his shoulders. Exactly why he chooses to take the blame lies in his character, which takes up the story of his teenager years shown through the eyes of his letters to his musical genius, Morrissey.
The narrative starts with Raymond trying to hitchhike to Grimsby to take up a labouring job set up by his hated uncle, Jason. Raymond is now nineteen and his life has been a disaster since the episode of the flies and his friendship with a thug and a boy that’s homosexual.
Locked up in a secure unit for the criminal insane, Raymond learns to trust nobody and the reader can only guess at this point if he is truly insane, or has been stitched up by his uncle,
The bastard, Jason. (quote from the book).
Through Raymond’s journey to Grimsby and the hilarious things that happen to him along the way, the reader sees his full story unfold. There are dark passages though and some things happen that should never have been.

Analysis.

There are two ways in which a reader can approach this book. On the surface Raymond seems to be a character with a lot of unfinished issues. We know that he has been in a mental asylum, but the reasons why he was put there are obscure.
To take it to the extreme then this poor lad has been manipulated for most of his life, by the very people he trusted. Sectioned at an early age, how can he tell what is real when he was pumped full of drugs at such a young age?’

The reader could also choose to say that the background details are proof enough to say that Raymond is not normal. But what is normal and how can Raymond ever hope to judge this for himself when nobody believes in him?
Raymond is the heart of who we are. The person that says, ‘No, this is not right.’


Characters.

It’s rare that I find characters so appealing, as they are in this book. As a writer myself I know that characters either make or break a book. In this case they’re a wealth of characters, from Raymond himself to his outspoken Gran and her determination not to enjoy life. When she is forced to live in a nursing home he sees the dark side of someone he loves doomed to wear party hats and play at being happy.
In this one chapter I saw both my parents and the comparison was 100% true. I cried for my parents who would never wave party balloons and pretend to be what they could not be.

Each character is imbued with life as the story unfolds. The male characters of Raymond’s friends are an absolute joy. From the rough and ready friend to the homosexual other, these are characters that give life and novelty to the pages of the book.


Summary.

I loved this book because I could see echoes of my own family in the narrative. The book’s Gran was near to my own Gran. The narrative is crisp and clear even when it’s dealing with Raymond’s feelings. In the end it all comes down to a tolerance which our society is not yet ready to take on board. This is real life, not the echoes of a society where people are supposed to be tolerant, but never really are.
To me it reminded me of my own teenage years, even though they were about fifteen years prior to the date when Raymond was supposed to have had his nervous breakdown. I had been put in a similar position and I think that many people reading the book would see echoes of their own disturbed years. It was natural then, we didn’t know from one day to the next what life would bring. Small wonder that Raymond, with plenty of other things on his mind would expect something bad to happen. Two decades after my own problems, this character in a book is living part of my life, how weird can a book get?
I read the book in two days, at 507 pages that might seem a lot, but I just couldn’t put the book down.
As I turned each page I thought,’ can I ever write like that?’
This is a big book full of the trials and tribulations of family life. It also touches on subjects that many people might feel “taboo”. It’s a big-hearted book that tackles concepts many people would shy away from, but there is such a rare truth in it that cannot be denied.
If you like a book that makes you feel but also makes you laugh and cry then this is for you.
It’s not a male or female book, it just is…. Damn good reading.

The boring bits.

The book is available on www.amazon.co.uk for about £5.60 or you can try and get a used one for a fraction of the price. I keep buying books, (this was a present from my daughter), but I hate to part with a book. This is one of those books that will stick in your mind and whatever age you are, you will be on Raymond’s side as he takes his first shaky steps towards a real life, not just one dominated by his hero, Morrissey.

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Summary: Real life with a few twists.