Closed Doors
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
A powerful tale of love, the loss of innocence and the importance of family in difficult times by the acclaimed author of The Death of Bees, winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize 2013.
‘There are no strangers in Rothesay, Michael. Everyone knows who you are and always will. It’s a blessing but it’s also a curse.’
Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: keepy-uppies and keeping secrets. His family think he’s too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors; it’s the only way to find out anything. And Michael’s heard a secret, one that might explain the bruises on his mother’s face.
When the whispers at home and on the street become too loud to ignore, Michael begins to wonder if there is an even bigger secret he doesn’t know about. Scared of what might happen if anyone finds out, and desperate for life to return to normal, Michael sets out to piece together the truth. But he also has to prepare for the upcoming talent show, keep an eye out for Dirty Alice, his arch-nemesis from down the street, and avoid eating Granny’s watery stew.
Closed Doors is the startling new novel from the acclaimed author of The Death of Bees. It is a vivid evocation of the fears and freedoms of childhood in the 1980s and a powerful tale of love, the loss of innocence and the importance of family in difficult times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Donnell's second novel (after The Death of Bees) is narrated by Michael Murray, an 11-year-old boy living with his parents and grandmother on a small island off the coast of Scotland during the Thatcher era. Early on, something terrible happens to Michael's mother, Rosemary; he's told that she fell down while running away from a flasher. Michael is spared the truth and initially accepts the explanation he's given, but O'Donnell leaves plenty of clues suggesting that something tragic has occurred. In one of the novel's most striking moments, Michael, desperate to make sense of his mother's descent into depression and his father's increasing anger over the crime, combs through dictionary entries of words he's overheard his parents use while arguing. Though O'Donnell creates a powerful voice for her young protagonist, she is less than fair to Rosemary, whose fear that telling the truth would open her up to victim blaming is presented as simply a source of pain to others, rather than as a legitimate concern.
