Willy Russell: The Wrong Boy

Doubleday

$34.95

Review: Sarah McRae*

An ordinary working-class schoolboy from northern England, Raymond Marks, has every intention of staying on the right track. But a cruel mix of pre-adolescent events sends him packing down a different and very wrong road.

The young Raymond is erroneously accused as the ringleader in the dubious boys' game of flycatching (to be read to be believed), played with his friends down by the canal.

He is then marked as the dirty boy to be ostracised by friends and family. From here things get even worse for him and his mum.

The story of the young Raymond's decline is told through a series of letters from an older and more insightful Raymond to his music idol, the former singer-songwriter of the Smiths, the mysterious Morrissey.

The story unfolds with a skilful portrait of the thoughts of a young boy caught out by circumstance and the prejudices of the people around him.

Young Raymond's saving grace comes mainly through some nicely described extra-special people.

His staunch and intelligent grandmother reassures him that it's the rest of the world that is really crazy.

His unusual schoolboy friends, Twinky McDavitt and Norman Gorman, demonstrate that being different from the mainstream can often be liberating.

His mother slowly realises the truth about the people around her and starts to place some faith in her son's pleas of innocence of the crimes of which he is accused, and the enigmatic girl with the chestnut eyes may hold the possibility of salvation for the older Raymond.

Author Willy Russell's other works include a number of stage and television plays and musicals, including the scripts for Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.

The Wrong Boy, his first novel, uses a recognisable humour and humanity to help us to digest the distressingly low moments in Raymond's life.

But happily, a well-crafted blend of words transports the dreadful nature of young Raymond's predicament and his treatment by those around him to a funny and uplifting level.

And rest assured that a musical appreciation for the sound of the Smiths is not a pre-requisite to relishing this quite unusual tale.

* Sarah McRae is a Wellington reviewer.