Amazing Absorbing Boy,The

Both familiar and strange, this story of a large Canadian city seen through the wide eyes of a naive and inexperienced young immigrant — wise in the culture of comic books — is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

Samuel is just 17 when his mother dies and he is called to live with the father he has only heard of. He leaves his village in Trinidad and flies to Toronto, where he finds his father living in a place called Regent Park. Samuel is lonely in this “big mall of a country,” but he has his memories of superheroes — his mentors — to guide him, including the memory of an unusual friend who was two superheroes in one, as he sets out to explore what Toronto has to offer.

Rabindranath Maharaj is the author of three previous novels: A Perfect Pledge, nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and for the Regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book; The Lagahoo’s Apprentice, a Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Notable Book of the Year; and Homer in Flight, nominated for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Robin Maharaj lives in Ajax, Ontario.