I really didn’t enjoy this story of a boy growing up in Cumberland without the affection of his parents. I picked it up because I quite like Bragg’s radio work and wanted to see what his literary stuff was like, but on the basis of this, I won’t be reading anything else that he’s done.
The protagonist was anything but sympathetic and the sort of chap you just want to tell to snap out of it, for goodness sake. In ways it reminded me of Nausea, but although Bragg may consider that a compliment, I don’t, since I completely failed to enjoy that either.
There’s probably subtle layers of meaning and Messages to be had, but I really didn’t find it engaging enough to make it worthwhile searching for them.
