Shy

“[A] slender burst of Joycean prose. . . . There’s an arresting quality to the narrative’s frantic breaths of prose poetry and brief, fractured form. As an experiment in character seen from the inside out, [Shy] stands as a singular shoutout to lost boys everywhere.”—Publishers Weekly

“An unforgettable rendering of universal experiences of alienation and sorrow. Readers who appreciate a deep dive into the human psyche will recognize the grace with which Porter renders his poignant protagonist.”—Shoba Viswanathan, Booklist

“Porter does a fine job of inhabiting the mind of a teenager in ways that may remind readers of David Mitchell’s novel Black Swan Green, with all the confusion and lack of resolution that come with the territory. . . . Porter gets his bumbling, anomic antihero down to a T.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A stormy and moving story about Shy, an angry young man in a world of barbed wire, in a world of bruises. In language that shimmers, rages and churns, Max Porter has once again written an unparalleled masterpiece.”—Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

“The troubled boy at the heart of this novel is full of rage and sadness but Max Porter finds tenderness and hope in him. Just beautiful.”—Mariana Enriquez

National publicity campaign

Bookseller outreach campaign

3-city US tour (New York, San Francisco, Portland)

Targeted digital and social media advertising