Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Good Housekeeping
Best Debut Novel

Irish Times, Cathy Dillon
'Jones successfully evokes the stifling, repressive atmosphere of an English village during a hot summer after the second World War'

Exclusive Amazon.co.uk Interview with Sadie Jones
What is The Outcast about?

The Outcast is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence – as he grows up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It is an everyday tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story.

What inspired you to write it?

The idea of a boy coming out of prison and trying to fit into a community that is itself corrupt was the first thing that came to me. I wanted to write an Oedipal story, with iconic characters, about what the nature of what it is to belong, and injustice. I set it in the fifties because I have always been very attracted to the books and films of that time.

Who are your literary influences?

It’s difficult to think in terms of being influenced, because when you write you try to find your own voice and forget those of other writers, but I must in some way be a product of books I’ve loved. My favourite writers are Hemingway, Capote, Salinger, McEwan and Dostoyevsky.

If you could recommend just one "must-read book" to anyone, what would it be and why?

It would be The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky, because it is a book that tells a riveting story and is profoundly insightful about human nature. Dostoyevsky has an undeserved reputation of being sort of turgid, but nothing could be further from the truth of this book. He relishes the events he discloses and has no prissiness – he gets in the mud with his characters.

What top tips do you have for anyone looking to write their first book?

It’s very hard; I only know what works for me, which is planning, structure and hard work. I have found that whenever I write thinking I’ll sort some lingering doubt out later, I generally run into trouble. If you can’t answer every single question about your story, then people will be able to tell. Also, try not to get too tied up in whether or not it’s any good, or what will happen to it when it’s finished – all of that can be paralysing.

Customer Reviews

an examination of pain
I read this book in 1.5 days much to my wife's irritation since I was supposed to be helping look after the children while on holiday! Other reviewers have referred to the clautrophobia of the 1950s which I would entirely concur with, there is a fawning sense of hierarchy and keeping up appearances regardless of underlying realities.
A great novel dealing with hypocrisy, failed communication between father and son, failure of articulation of great distress and possible resolution.
I strongly recommend reading it.

a bit disappointing
I really wanted to like this after all the hype but to be honest I found it a bit boring and melodramatic. The central idea was good but I never really got inside Lewis's head and towards the end the fact that every female character in the book found him irresistible got a bit silly. The final scenes in the church and at the railway station beggared my belief, you could see the book was written with a movie deal in mind. I found myself skipping large chunks and was a bit bored.

Sublime
A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of fiction. This is the book I wished I had written and the friends to whom I've lent my copy say the same. I sincerely hope that this isn't the one and only book Sadie Jones has in her, but what a read The Outcast is; fan-blooming-tastic!