Wild Boy - Hardcover

Jill Dawson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0340822961 ISBN 13: 9780340822968

Publisher: Sceptre, 2003

Synopsis

In post-Revolution France, a child is discovered in the forests near Aveyron, where he seems to have been living wild for seven years. Now 12 years old, the Wild Boy, as he becomes known, is captured, put on public display as a freak, and finally handed over to the ambitious, repressed Doctor Itard, who is charged with studying the Wild Boy, who he names Victor, and trying to discover the secrets of his strange, secret life. But Victor soon becomes a pawn in the raging debate about nature vs nurture, and Itard's attempts to educate and civilise him bear little fruit. Instead, Victor seems drawn to Mme Guerin, his maternal guardian - and to her vivacious daughter, Julie, who is herself falling for Itard as he struggles to understand both Victor and his own confused emotions. Giving a vivid sense of the Revolutionary period, the novel brings to life through the stories of three fascinating characters a mysterious case that still resonates today.

About this title

About the Author

Jill Dawson is an award-winning poet, novelist and editor of several anthologies including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse and, with Margo Daly, Wild Ways. Her first novel, Trick of the Light, has been optioned for a film and she is working on the screenplay of her second novel, Magpie (both published by Sceptre). She was the British Council Fellow at Amherst College, Massachusetts, in 1997 and is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow in Writing at the University of East Anglia. Born in the north of England, she has recently moved with her family from London to Cambridgeshire.

Review

'The damaged child's frantic little body and fragile heart are an insistent, vivid presence on every page of [this] fine novel. Victor is the meeting place of theories, but he is also flesh ... Dawson's prose is graceful, her approach deeply intelligent and persuasive. She is as attentive to every period nuance as to the desolating silence at the heart of the Wild Boy's story.' -- Hilary Mantel, Waterstone's Books Quarterly 'An accomplished novel, rich with ideas and vivid characters, which is, above all, a lucid and moving exploration of the nature of autism.' -- Laura Baggaley, Observer 'persuasive and thought-provoking' -- Emma Hagestadt, The Independent 20040716

About this edition

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0340822961
• ISBN 13: 9780340822968
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304