It's a shame about Ray (The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell)

Member Name: dandelionburdock

Product:	The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
Date:	16/07/02 (190 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: utterly believable, wonderful dialogue

Disadvantages: slightly iffy last chapter

I've had The Wrong Boy sitting on a shelf since my last birthday, when a friend of mine lovingly wrapped and presented it to me, swearing blind that it was the best thing she'd ever read. "Thanks", I said, going through the Willy Russell-ography in my head which contained such uncool horrors as Shirley Valentine and Blood Brothers. Neither of which I've actually seen, but both of which through second hand accounts I'd long associated with the kind of thing my mum would really, really like.

Eventually, last Thursday, I picked it up. Yesterday, I put it down. At some point fairly soon I'll pick it up and read the whole thing again as it's frankly one of the best works I've ever read.

It revolves around Raymond Marks, a late teenager from Failsworth in Manchester, and takes the form of a series of letters written to his idol - Morrissey. We learn that he's on his way to Grimsby to work on a building site thanks to a favour called by his Uncle, affectionately referred to as "Uncle Bastard Jason". Raymond relays the story of his lost youth via a series of reminiscences, all of which trail back to a rescue attempt while at Primary School that would forever be misconstrued by the local community.

Flytrapping is the marble that set off the mousetrap, a practice involving a dozen or so young lads, a canal bank, bared penises and an unsuspecting fly. One poor flytrapper inadvertantly takes the plunge into the canal, Raymond dives in after, and following a brief period of being lauded as a hero, the fall of the hero begins. And doesn't seem to stop. Lewd behaviour, child abuse, lit matches dropped through letterboxes onto petrol soaked carpets, shoplifting, insanity, weight problems, ill-interpreted suicide attempts, cliche-ridden psychologists, vegetarianism and celibacy, absent fathers...all form significant parts of the story explaining how an innocent boy accidently becomes ostracised by al
l those around him.

It's a superbly insightful look at the way a community rounds on an unsuspecting character on the say-so of one individual. A multitude of painful twists, but all so utterly logical and convincing that it's completely impossible to see the story going any other way. Only in the last chapter does Russell really stretch the realms of circumstance and possibility to a point beyond that of the believable, and even then the conclusion is completely and lip-smackingly satisfactory.

It's incredibly difficult to give anything away without completely ruining an integral part of the story, but suffice to say that in Raymond the novel has a lead character and narrator that it's completely impossible not to get behind, regardless of your feelings towards his Morrissey fixation. As a Smiths fan myself, it's a whole lot easier to get into the swing of things while Russell reels off references to mispressed 12" records, obscure lyrics and Edith Sitwell T-shirts, but even detached from that the tale is utterly spellbinding. It's Russell's first novel, but you genuinely wouldn't know it.

If you've ever felt hard done by or misunderstood, you need this book. And if you haven't, read this book and find out how lucky you are.

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