Children of the Sun
by Max Schaefer
Narrated by Joe Jameson
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Pub Date Sep 14 2021 | Archive Date Sep 14 2021
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Description
1970: Fourteen-year-old Tony becomes seduced by the skinhead movement, sucked into a world of brutal racist violence and bizarre rituals. It's a milieu in which he must hide his homosexuality, in which every encounter is explosively risky.
2003: James is a young TV researcher, living with his boyfriend. At a loose end, he begins to research the far right in Britain and its secret gay membership.
The two narrative threads of this extraordinarily assured and ambitious first novel unforgettably intersect.
Children of the Sun is a work of great imaginative sympathy and range - a novel of unblinking honesty but also of deep feeling, which illuminates the surprisingly thin line that separates aggression from tenderness and offers us a picture of a Britain that is strange and yet utterly convincing.
Advance Praise
" ...filled with brilliant evocations of period atmosphere." - The Guardian
" ...filled with brilliant evocations of period atmosphere." - The Guardian
Available Editions
| EDITION | Audiobook, Unabridged |
| ISBN | 9788728024652 |
| PRICE | £10.99 (GBP) |
| DURATION | 12 Hours, 17 Minutes |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Elena B, Reviewer
Many thanks to Netgalley and Saga Egmont Audio for providing me the audiobook version of Children of the Sun in exchange for an honest review.
And to be honest, this is a hard book for me to rate and review. Like many other readers, this book was definitely out of my comfort zone in a political sense. Since it focuses on the skinhead movement, i.e neo-nazism in England, I would definitely not consider this book as a light read. There are many trigger warnings, including the following: violence, homophobia, rape, child abuse, racism, racial slurs, pedophilia.
This book taught me a lot of historical things that I wasn't familiar with. I didn't know that homosexual individuals had a hand in the skinhead movement in the 70-80s. And reading about these characters was fascinating, to say the least.
The story was complex and the characters were compelling. The author knows what he's doing and he knows these characters like he's met them in real life.
The structure of the book was kinda challenging for me because it switches p.o.vs and timelines and I listened to it as an audiobook. I was often lost, trying to make sense who are the characters in the chapter.
There are two MCs narrating their own stories. First we have Tony and his story starts in the 70s. He's a a gay teenager but gets involved in the skinhead movement. Then we have the other MC, James and his story starts in the early 2000s. James has a complicated relationship with the teenager Adam who is quite promiscuous. James' ambition to write a screenplay about the neo-nazi movement gets him involved in shady, dangerous things.
I couldn't get attached to the main characters, as they weren't the most likeable people. And their life choices weren't the smartest.
The audiobook's narrator (Joe Jameson) did an excellent job. Listening to Children of the Sun as an audiobook heightens the aggregation of the story. I found that to be a positive thing.
As a compelling narrative filled with historical details and serious societal problems, I do recommend this novel to anyone who likes to get out of their political comfort zone. Just beware of the trigger warnings.
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