The Wrong Boy
by Willy Russell
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List Price: ££8.99
Our Price: ££3.95
Your Save: £ 0.00 ( % )
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Black Swan
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780552996457
ISBN: 0552996459
Label: Black Swan
Number Of Pages: 506
Publication Date: 2001-07-02
Publisher: Black Swan
Studio: Black Swan
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Just superb
Comment: I picked up this book to read on holiday and I couldn't put it down. From the moment I started reading it I was drawn in by Raymonds story. I too, laughed out loud and cried on the plane and I must apologise to the person sitting next to me who must have thought I was nuts. I have never written a review before but this was the best book I have read in many, many years. It's two months now since I finished reading it but this story has an effect on you which I know other people have felt too. Please, read it for yourself then you will know why this book has so many wonderful reviews here.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Read This Book
Comment: I actually picked this book up first in a second hand shop. It's a wonderful story of a young man negotiating adolescence and both being and perceiving that he is misunderstood; a reflection of the way adults so often turn the most innocent of things into something lewd and inappropriate; and that all important message that to 'fit in' is for many of us impossible and therefore we should feel freed to be who we are. Raymond is a funny and poignant character and made me both laugh, and not just cry, but actually sob.
One of my favourite books.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not easy to categorize
Comment: I found reading this book an odd experience. Russell genuinely can write sparkling dialogue and narrative, and the book is quite compelling reading. The characters blaze with life and the plot combines the farcical and the tragic with great skill.
Just don't read the book expecting something naturalistic. I found it disconcertingly cartoon-like; ALL authority figures are stereotypically two-dimensional and horrible, fate conspires over and over again to pile on the suffering and his two best friends come straight out of musical theatre. The ending has the air of pure fantasy, as if he couldn't bear to make his loveable hero suffer for a single page longer.
If you start reading it, you won't stop until you have finished; but I am sure I am not the only person who has occasionally wished he would calm the emotional temperature and give me someone more quietly and subtly drawn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Funny and charming
Comment: Raymond Marks is the Wrong Boy. Through a series of misunderstandings and accidents, he is accused of being a pervert, and ends up in an institution. His journey through early life forms the story of Russell's first novel, told in the form of a series of letters to former Smith's front man Morrissey.
The novel is very funny in places, but also touching and frequently sad. The vicissitudes and coincidences of life are well-observed, as Raymond frequently comes out worse through no fault of his own. This novel is not deep and penetrating, but it is amusing and easy to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book
Comment: Hilarious, moving and enthralling, a story told by young Raymond, a "not normal" boy, in his letters written to Morrissey. His troubles start with some innocent boys' games by the canal, misunderstood as a perversion by teachers and parents, and escalate from there. He describes his relationships with his family: confused mother, down to earth loving ally of a grandmother, horrendous uncle; and he enjoys the friendship of some slightly odd peers and other interesting characters as he progresses.
Even at its most moving, the humour still shines through. An intriguing and gripping plot, it is tempting to rush ahead to discover what happens next, but to do so means sacrificing the sheer joy of reading Raymond's ramblings. Beautifully written, very entertaining and truly involving, this is to be highly recommended.
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Editorial Reviews: |
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Just superb
Comment: I picked up this book to read on holiday and I couldn't put it down. From the moment I started reading it I was drawn in by Raymonds story. I too, laughed out loud and cried on the plane and I must apologise to the person sitting next to me who must have thought I was nuts. I have never written a review before but this was the best book I have read in many, many years. It's two months now since I finished reading it but this story has an effect on you which I know other people have felt too. Please, read it for yourself then you will know why this book has so many wonderful reviews here.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Read This Book
Comment: I actually picked this book up first in a second hand shop. It's a wonderful story of a young man negotiating adolescence and both being and perceiving that he is misunderstood; a reflection of the way adults so often turn the most innocent of things into something lewd and inappropriate; and that all important message that to 'fit in' is for many of us impossible and therefore we should feel freed to be who we are. Raymond is a funny and poignant character and made me both laugh, and not just cry, but actually sob.
One of my favourite books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not easy to categorize
Comment: I found reading this book an odd experience. Russell genuinely can write sparkling dialogue and narrative, and the book is quite compelling reading. The characters blaze with life and the plot combines the farcical and the tragic with great skill.
Just don't read the book expecting something naturalistic. I found it disconcertingly cartoon-like; ALL authority figures are stereotypically two-dimensional and horrible, fate conspires over and over again to pile on the suffering and his two best friends come straight out of musical theatre. The ending has the air of pure fantasy, as if he couldn't bear to make his loveable hero suffer for a single page longer.
If you start reading it, you won't stop until you have finished; but I am sure I am not the only person who has occasionally wished he would calm the emotional temperature and give me someone more quietly and subtly drawn.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Funny and charming
Comment: Raymond Marks is the Wrong Boy. Through a series of misunderstandings and accidents, he is accused of being a pervert, and ends up in an institution. His journey through early life forms the story of Russell's first novel, told in the form of a series of letters to former Smith's front man Morrissey.
The novel is very funny in places, but also touching and frequently sad. The vicissitudes and coincidences of life are well-observed, as Raymond frequently comes out worse through no fault of his own. This novel is not deep and penetrating, but it is amusing and easy to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book
Comment: Hilarious, moving and enthralling, a story told by young Raymond, a "not normal" boy, in his letters written to Morrissey. His troubles start with some innocent boys' games by the canal, misunderstood as a perversion by teachers and parents, and escalate from there. He describes his relationships with his family: confused mother, down to earth loving ally of a grandmother, horrendous uncle; and he enjoys the friendship of some slightly odd peers and other interesting characters as he progresses.
Even at its most moving, the humour still shines through. An intriguing and gripping plot, it is tempting to rush ahead to discover what happens next, but to do so means sacrificing the sheer joy of reading Raymond's ramblings. Beautifully written, very entertaining and truly involving, this is to be highly recommended.
The Wrong Boy is the debut novel of Liverpudlian playwright Willy Russell, famed for his plays-turned-films Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, and the West End musical stalwart Blood Brothers. Both Rita and Valentine were star-making roles and if (and when) The Wrong Boy makes it to the screen, the main character Raymond is likely to have the same effect on one lucky young actor. Teenager Raymond Marks has not had a charmed life. His profligate, instrument-loving father made an early exit, leaving him with a struggling mother and doting Sartre-fan grandmother. Fifteen minutes of potential glory when he saved a boy from drowning are cruelly compromised when it's discovered that the boys were near the canal indulging in what they called "flytrapping", and Raymond becomes "the precocious pervert, the evil influence, the filthy little beast". Eventually packed off to "Gulag Grimsby" at the suggestion of his despised Uncle Jason, Raymond pours out his life's woes in a series of missives to his idol, one-time Smiths' star Morrissey. Writing his letters with improbable speed, Raymond is ingratiating, unstoppable and superbly miserable, as befits a Morrissey devotee--and lucky enough to be surrounded by a bevy of gift-wrapped Northern character parts. Russell's genius is to take situations and characters that are firmly placed in the banally familiar--and then push them to their comic limits. In The Wrong Boy those limits are tested to the full. --Alan Stewart
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