Outrun the Dark

by Cecilia Bartholomew

A four-year- old boy is dead. His eight-year-old sister, Billyjean, is accused of murder. Here is the story of Billyjean, thirteen years later---the powerful portrait of a young woman's journey from madness back to reality. Billyjean lies in an unreal world where terror resides in the next room. Billyjean has returned home after thirteen years in a mental asylum. She has listened carefully to her kindly, patient psychiatrist about what to expect. She looks at her new life with a unique, completely personal logic, and the clarity of a child discovering a new alphabet... Her only friends are two precocious young neighbours who persuade Billyjean to open her own investigation into the murder. Told with penetrating psychological insight and a deft sense of drama, OUTRUN THE DARK will haunt the reader after they have turned the final page.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little known and in no way a masterpiece, but this was still a very entertaining read. I was sad to find there is no mention of the author anywhere on the internet. I wish I could tell her what a good time I had with her book.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billiejean, a little eight year old girl is caught standing over the body of her little brother holding the wrench that killed him. She spends the next thirteen years of her life in a mental hospital. For those thirteen years she is told that she killed her little brother, Bubber, and she will have to face the reality of that and admit it before she will be well enough to go home. The only problem is she doesn’t remember doing it. And when she finally gets to go home there are people who tell her they don’t believe that she did. In truth the mystery here isn’t much of a mystery. Not to the reader anyway. You can guess what happened pretty early on. The book becomes not about what happened to Bubber but what is going to happen to Billiejean now. She is both still eight years old and a woman of twenty-one. You see the world through Billiejean’s eyes as she tries to navigate through her new world. She is confused and scared and does not know how to behave. She tries desperately to do what is expected of her so people will think she is normal and well but at the same time she does not believe it herself. You also get to see how the characters around Billiejean deal with her coming home, her father is desperate as he tries to explain himself, her mother is worried what everyone thinks but wants to do right by Billiejean, and the neighbors don’t know what is best for Billiejean or how to help. It is a story about the emotional and psychological responses of the whole neighborhood to this one event that engulfed and changed so many lives so profoundly. Even though you feel like you know what happened to Bubber, Billiejean is still not sure herself and her search and what the outcome and consequences of it will be leave you with lots of doubts. You want to know if Billiejean can pull through this whole. You want to know if anyone will be there for her at the end. I think it failed to make Bubber the mystery it had intended but it is still a tense and emotional story about Billiejean’s struggle to find her life again.

[Diana Long · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author writes a story about an eight year old child, Billy Jean who was believed to have murdered her four year old brother Bubber. Billy Jean is put into an institution and stays there for 13 years, but many of her friends and neighbors believe she is innocent. Besides two horrible parents Stuart and Muriel, a bunch of well meaning nosy neighbors and our protagonist who flirts with reality we get our story.
In all honesty I just didn't care for the subject matter or the writing but felt since I've been hanging on to this novel for almost sixty years it deserved to be read.

[Kidlitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was recommended as a neglected text in the field of child narratives, psychological and familial disturbances, the importance of community, and the hopeful use of self-therapeutic acts to heal a traumatized mind. It's more of a fever dream but strangely unputdownable. Most readers will find it a challenge but if you can get past the hot mess, it's gripping if incoherent.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book was not for me, I found that the story dragged on. Also the main character Billiejean was annoying. I was originally going to have this as a DNF, but my curiosity got the better of me.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a strange one and a bit disturbing.
I was kinda confused in the beginning trying to get used to the writing style and the main character. The middle part of the book got more interesting, but I didn't like the ending. It was odd (the whole thing with Michael in the last chapter seemed very rushed and just ridiculous). I mean, everyone seems to be mesmerized or attracted to the main character in some way. I suppose that's partly because she is back from a mental institution and that's not a very common occurance in a small community. Regardless, the character more or less becomes a victim to others around her.
Figuring out who the murderer is is pretty simple, but you read the story to learn how the main character is going to work through the events in her head and acknowledge the truth about what had happened that day.
Not a fan of this one and though it did get interesting in some parts, I'm glad it's finished. :/

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's such a heart-wrenching story. She was only eight years old and sentenced to a life full of hell-bound torture methods and then called crazy, but anyone would go crazy under those circumstances. Reading books like this one, truly make me happy that I grew up in the generation I did aside from Covid-19.

[Melisende · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this some time ago - and couldn't put it down. Have read it may times since. My book (paperback edition) had a very different cover - a young girl with a raggedy doll (not any of the covers that are shown currently).