He calls them his ‘protection tricks’ and whenever his parents devolve into quarrel he finds solace in singing songs and plunging his hands into scalding hot water. Jimmy, always thinking he is to blame, attributes their arguments to the new bike he begged for and received and even offers to give it back if that will stop the trouble.Īside from such innocence, Jimmy has some methods for dealing with the strife in his household. His father’s a drunk, his mother has a secret abortion, and their disdain for each other grows throughout the novel. And, when he is told that God frowns upon bad behaviour by punishing those that sin, Jimmy believes that he is being reprimanded from up on high when the family life around him begins to disintegrate. While the sisters at school feed him all the usual nonsense, his interpretation is that God is a literal being. When not embroiled in such pursuits he turns his attention to the question of God. Jimmy’s day to day activities include going to school, hanging around with his friends, and talking with an elderly Raggleton resident (called Bloody Jack) down by the harbour. His elder sister, Molly, lived in Wellington. His world back then was the coastal town of Raggleton where he lived with his parents and went to Catholic school. The story is told by thirteen year old Jimmy Sullivan who is recounting the events in his life two years previous when his world changed forever.

I believe it is hailed as a classic in his home land - in much the same way Grassic Gibbons’ Sunset Song is in Scotland – and forms (or at least once formed) part of the school curriculum – but don’t quote me on that.

Written in the late fifties, this debut novel falls somewhere between Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye (which I am yet to read) and Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Were it not for my rather unnatural obsession as regards collecting all of the Penguin Classics, I may never have heard of The God Boy by New Zealand journalist, Ian Cross.

The God Boy by Ian Cross