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Boy: A Novel
To escape a brutal life on the Liverpool docks, a boy runs away to sea
Arthur Fearon is nearly thirteen, and in the eyes of the law, that makes him a man. He wants to study to become a chemist, but his family cannot afford for him to continue school. The thought of a life working the docks makes Fearon break down in front of his classmates, but there is no time to cry. This boy has to get to work.
The docks are hellish, and Fearon’s first day is his last. He hops a steamer to Alexandria, looking for a better life on the sea, but everywhere he goes, he finds cruelty, vice, and the crushing weight of adulthood. He will not be a man for long.
The subject of an infamous 1930s obscenity trial, this is the original, unexpurgated text of James Hanley’s landmark novel: an unflinching examination of child labor and a timeless tale of adulthood gained too soon.
Arthur Fearon is nearly thirteen, and in the eyes of the law, that makes him a man. He wants to study to become a chemist, but his family cannot afford for him to continue school. The thought of a life working the docks makes Fearon break down in front of his classmates, but there is no time to cry. This boy has to get to work.
The docks are hellish, and Fearon’s first day is his last. He hops a steamer to Alexandria, looking for a better life on the sea, but everywhere he goes, he finds cruelty, vice, and the crushing weight of adulthood. He will not be a man for long.
The subject of an infamous 1930s obscenity trial, this is the original, unexpurgated text of James Hanley’s landmark novel: an unflinching examination of child labor and a timeless tale of adulthood gained too soon.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1931
15 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
About the author
James Hanley
77 books13 followersBorn in Kirkdale, Liverpool, in 1897 (not Dublin, nor 1901 as he generally implied) to a working-class family, Hanley probably left school in 1911 and worked as a clerk, before going to sea in 1915 at the age of 17 (not 13 as he again implied). Thus life at sea was a formative influence and much of his early writing is about seamen.
Then, in April 1917, Hanley jumped ship in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and shortly thereafter joined the Canadian Army in Fredericton, NB. Hanley fought in France in the summer of 1918, but was invalided out shortly thereafter. He then went to Toronto, Canada, for two months, in the winter of 1919, to be demobbed, before returning to Liverpool on 28 March 1919. He may have taken one final voyage before working as a railway porter in Bootle. In addition to working as a railway porter, he devoted himself "to a prodiguous range of autodidactic, high cultural activities – learning the piano ...attending ... concerts ... reading voraciously and, above all, writing." It is also probable that he later worked at a number of other jobs, while writing fiction in his spare time. However, it was not until 1929 that his novel Drift was accepted, and this was published in March, 1930.
Then, in April 1917, Hanley jumped ship in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and shortly thereafter joined the Canadian Army in Fredericton, NB. Hanley fought in France in the summer of 1918, but was invalided out shortly thereafter. He then went to Toronto, Canada, for two months, in the winter of 1919, to be demobbed, before returning to Liverpool on 28 March 1919. He may have taken one final voyage before working as a railway porter in Bootle. In addition to working as a railway porter, he devoted himself "to a prodiguous range of autodidactic, high cultural activities – learning the piano ...attending ... concerts ... reading voraciously and, above all, writing." It is also probable that he later worked at a number of other jobs, while writing fiction in his spare time. However, it was not until 1929 that his novel Drift was accepted, and this was published in March, 1930.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
April 6, 2013
The banning, deprecation and release only in expurgated form of this novel are all symptoms of the values enmeshed in the power of controllers and their followers – the willingly controlled. Far from being pornographic, only someone with a dirty mind could find it so, and, ironically, where the novel describes several sexual encounters they are horrible, diseased, and related only to flesh exploited as meat, and Power.
The Boy is Arthur Fearon who we first see in school being bullied by his teacher. He is 12 years old and his parents are taking him from school that week to earn money, although Arthur wants to become a chemist. His teacher and headmaster come close to showing sympathy and kindness but the glimpses of these are buried in years of bitter experience that has hardened them. This making hard is a theme. Fearon's father is a thug and a bully, regularly beating his son. He gets Arthur a job as a scaler at the docks: he lasts just a day after being sent first down into the stinking bbilges, then into a boiler where a group of other boys initiate the newcomer by an act of sexual degradation. In despair the Boy stows away in a ship's coal bunker until he is discovered three nights later, half dead. This is not to give the plot away. It's the power of Hanley's writing which makes the book a classic. He punches images into the text that are unforgettable. His psychological insights are immense as is his expression of them.
We follow Arthur on a voyage where only at one point does he dream with hope of a happy future. This pathetic dream makes more poignant the lad's wretched life which we will follow to his death. The seamen, like his teachers, are not incapable of kindness but this is erratic. They are 'hard men' and many of them see that a Boy, any Boy, weak and defenceless is to be used and abused at will – physically, emotionally and sexually. It is the sea that has taught them, holds them in captivity, shapes them, a 'sea' of life that is itself brutal, soul-destroying and precarious. The novel, at one level, is about male violence, how innocence putrefies and experience poisons kindness; on a more general level it is a universal tale of how the world of the exploited becomes a sea of misery and can make good people bad in their struggle to survive.
It's not the place here to do more than note that Hanley employs a strand of contrast between hard men and weak boys, tough guys and soft boys, men who are real men and boys like girls. The feminine side of the sea, the world, is torn to shreds, beaten, sneered at; the men live in smoke and dirt, grease and sweat.
It is ironic that in a thematic reversal, the Boy after being brought to a prostitute by another sailor, is so fascinated that with great difficulty he sneaks off the ship that night to return to her. What excites him, what delights him, what flood of pleasure flows through him at climax is not sexual, but the thrill of power. Power is like a drug, it is what leads the men – exploited themselves by shipping shareholders utterly careless of how their money is made, at what great human cost – to routinely bully. For a few minutes with the prostitute, Arthur has become his father. Those few minutes also gave him syphilis and brought him to one final act of kindness that puts him out of his misery.
Despite the unadorned simplicity of style, Boy is a remarkably complex novel. It is deeply moving and, whatever flaws it has, deserves to be known more widely.
The Boy is Arthur Fearon who we first see in school being bullied by his teacher. He is 12 years old and his parents are taking him from school that week to earn money, although Arthur wants to become a chemist. His teacher and headmaster come close to showing sympathy and kindness but the glimpses of these are buried in years of bitter experience that has hardened them. This making hard is a theme. Fearon's father is a thug and a bully, regularly beating his son. He gets Arthur a job as a scaler at the docks: he lasts just a day after being sent first down into the stinking bbilges, then into a boiler where a group of other boys initiate the newcomer by an act of sexual degradation. In despair the Boy stows away in a ship's coal bunker until he is discovered three nights later, half dead. This is not to give the plot away. It's the power of Hanley's writing which makes the book a classic. He punches images into the text that are unforgettable. His psychological insights are immense as is his expression of them.
We follow Arthur on a voyage where only at one point does he dream with hope of a happy future. This pathetic dream makes more poignant the lad's wretched life which we will follow to his death. The seamen, like his teachers, are not incapable of kindness but this is erratic. They are 'hard men' and many of them see that a Boy, any Boy, weak and defenceless is to be used and abused at will – physically, emotionally and sexually. It is the sea that has taught them, holds them in captivity, shapes them, a 'sea' of life that is itself brutal, soul-destroying and precarious. The novel, at one level, is about male violence, how innocence putrefies and experience poisons kindness; on a more general level it is a universal tale of how the world of the exploited becomes a sea of misery and can make good people bad in their struggle to survive.
It's not the place here to do more than note that Hanley employs a strand of contrast between hard men and weak boys, tough guys and soft boys, men who are real men and boys like girls. The feminine side of the sea, the world, is torn to shreds, beaten, sneered at; the men live in smoke and dirt, grease and sweat.
It is ironic that in a thematic reversal, the Boy after being brought to a prostitute by another sailor, is so fascinated that with great difficulty he sneaks off the ship that night to return to her. What excites him, what delights him, what flood of pleasure flows through him at climax is not sexual, but the thrill of power. Power is like a drug, it is what leads the men – exploited themselves by shipping shareholders utterly careless of how their money is made, at what great human cost – to routinely bully. For a few minutes with the prostitute, Arthur has become his father. Those few minutes also gave him syphilis and brought him to one final act of kindness that puts him out of his misery.
Despite the unadorned simplicity of style, Boy is a remarkably complex novel. It is deeply moving and, whatever flaws it has, deserves to be known more widely.
July 21, 2008
Hanley's work is uneven, I find, but this early one is one of the best. Sharp, direct, honest. Very powerful
September 23, 2020
Ανελέητο και άβολο προλεταριακό μυθιστόρημα του 1931 από τον σήμερα ξεχασμένο άγγλο James Hanley// προκλητικό για την εποχή του και κυνηγημένο, καταδικάστηκε σε 400 λίρες πρόστιμο και κάψιμο 100 αντιτύπων, πράγμα που οι υπεύθυνοι της έκδοσης δέχτηκαν για να αποφύγουν την φυλάκιση// ο ήρωας Arthrur Hearon έχει όνειρο να γίνει χημικός, όνειρο εντελώς αντίθετο στην πραγματικότητα και στη θέληση των βάναυσων προλετάριων γονιών του, που τον παίρνουν από το σχολείο στα 13 του χρόνια και ο πατέρας του τον στέλνει λιμενεργάτη// εκεί το απάλευτο 8ωρο σε κάκιστες εργασιακές συνθήκες και ο βιασμός του από τα μεγαλύτερα αγόρια στη βάρδια τον οδηγούν να δραπετεύσει ως λαθρεπιβάτης σε ένα εμπορικό ατμόπλοιο// Το παιδί βρίσκεται παντού σκληρά θύμα της εξουσίας όλων, γονιών και συναδέλφων, ο ψυχολογικός πόλεμος και η αχαριστία τον διαλύουν, ενώ η παλιανθρωπιά μιας εντελώς παρηκμασμένης εργατικής τάξης δίνει ένα μυθιστόρημα στεγνό, χωρίς διόλου φως ελπίδας, άκαμπτο, ανυποχώρητα απαισιόδοξο και δυσάρεστο//Το δύσκολο είδος του ναυτικού μυθιστορήματος (είδος που ανήκει το αριστούργημα του B. Traven "Το πλοίο των νεκρών" αλλά και το πιο μέτριο "Καρχαρίες" του Γιένς Μπιέρνεμπου) με την περιορισμένη και κλειστοφοβική του συχνά αισθητική, όπου εκ λογοτεχνικής εμπειρίας, λίγο χωρά η ανθρωπιά και η πλοκή έχει όρια, στη τυπική περίπτωση αυτή κάνει ένα ενδιαφέρον αλλά με λίγη χάρη μυθιστόρημα// Η κακία ενός περιβάλλοντος που δεν συγχωρεί την αδυναμία, ενός περιβάλλοντος εκμεταλλευομένων που ωστόσο βρίσκουν διέξοδο να ασκήσουν απάνθρωπα κι αυτοί εξουσία είναι ένα σοβαρό θέμα που δύσκολα καταπίνεται// το βιβλίο του Hanley έχει ιστορική αξία.
July 27, 2015
3.49 stars, and my thanks go to Net Galley and Open Road Integrated Media for the DRC.
Boy, a tragic story that reads like a hybrid between Dickens and Melville, was originally published in 1930, and ran into all sorts of censorship. There are passages that contain sex that would not even be considered erotica now, since they avoid much specificity, but for the bourgeoisie of that time period, it was way too much. The censorship fight was where my interest came from, because I don't generally seek out tragedy. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Any time anyone tries to keep the printed word from being accessible, my curiosity is piqued.
Arthur Fearon is an academically talented student whose parents make him leave school at thirteen even though at the time, the legal drop-out age in Britain is fourteen. His father has been on strike and had no income for awhile, and is bad at bringing his paycheck home when he has one. An only child, his parents both look to Arthur to become the family bread winner. His father finds him a position on the docks, and Arthur hates it so much that he stows away on board a ship, with the notion that he will emigrate away from England, maybe land in the United States and get a fresh start. Young as he is,it never occurs to him to learn which ship is going where. The ship he hides on isn't even headed that way.
Issues of child abuse and in particular the way this youngster is turned away by every adult from whom he seeks help are hard on the eyes and hard on the heart.
The writing style is one that may not work for a lot of people in 2015. This was written in more or less the same era as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and it has a lot of stylistic similarities. Inner narratives run on for much longer than one might expect, because the reader of 80 years ago had a much greater attention span. There is a fair amount of repetition that was considered acceptable then but might not be appreciated by today's readers.
One thing I can tell you for sure: if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this book will make all your own problems look like nothing at all. Just right for the reader that wants a good three-hanky novel.
Boy, a tragic story that reads like a hybrid between Dickens and Melville, was originally published in 1930, and ran into all sorts of censorship. There are passages that contain sex that would not even be considered erotica now, since they avoid much specificity, but for the bourgeoisie of that time period, it was way too much. The censorship fight was where my interest came from, because I don't generally seek out tragedy. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Any time anyone tries to keep the printed word from being accessible, my curiosity is piqued.
Arthur Fearon is an academically talented student whose parents make him leave school at thirteen even though at the time, the legal drop-out age in Britain is fourteen. His father has been on strike and had no income for awhile, and is bad at bringing his paycheck home when he has one. An only child, his parents both look to Arthur to become the family bread winner. His father finds him a position on the docks, and Arthur hates it so much that he stows away on board a ship, with the notion that he will emigrate away from England, maybe land in the United States and get a fresh start. Young as he is,it never occurs to him to learn which ship is going where. The ship he hides on isn't even headed that way.
Issues of child abuse and in particular the way this youngster is turned away by every adult from whom he seeks help are hard on the eyes and hard on the heart.
The writing style is one that may not work for a lot of people in 2015. This was written in more or less the same era as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and it has a lot of stylistic similarities. Inner narratives run on for much longer than one might expect, because the reader of 80 years ago had a much greater attention span. There is a fair amount of repetition that was considered acceptable then but might not be appreciated by today's readers.
One thing I can tell you for sure: if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this book will make all your own problems look like nothing at all. Just right for the reader that wants a good three-hanky novel.
August 12, 2015
Crudely written (Hanley claimed he wrote it in ten days) but absorbing tale of a naive and physically frail boy, Arthur Fearon, who, tiring of his father's brutality, flees his home in Liverpool for a life at sea, stowing away on the ship The Hernian. On ship he is mistreated in every imaginable way by the crew, and yet survives and takes the job of lookout when the sailor in that position dies as the result of an accident. Arthur wants to learn and adapt to his new surroundings, but his tenure as a sailor is cut short when he contracts an illness. Arthur's tragedy is all the more poignant because he is so obviously not suited for any of the options that life presents to him. This book was the subject of obscenity charges upon its publication in England.
January 26, 2019
On page 185 of the book, one of the characters says of the protagonist: "I can't understand this lad at all", a thought that clearly runs through the minds of all the people who come into contact with Boy, Arthur Fearon. This surely must include the readers too.
In fact, more than not understanding him, it seems that, apart from a few ambivalent exceptions, they also all strongly dislike him. And that's hardly surprising. Fearon, as a character, is infuriating: he is foolish, uncooperative (most, if not all, characters ask of him, repeatedly: "what is the matter with you?"), needy, inconsistent and pathetic.
He forever takes rash decisions, pledging life-long commitment, only to go back on them a few days later. There appears to be no redeeming qualities in him and the tragic and dramatic end of the book, rather than shocking the reader, is in the end rather welcome. He deserves pretty much all that he gets (and that's quite a lot).
And then there is the writing itself.
The foreword to my edition, written by Hanley's son, quotes a comment made by the author himself about the book in 1953: "It took me ten days. Now I realise that is should have taken me much longer than that. So shapeless and crude and overburdened with feelings." And here are the problems of the book neatly and candidly summarised.
The writing is sloppy (I suspect that are many missing words and substitutions), describing situations as if through some sort of limiting tunnel vision, which means the reader is often wondering what is actually going on.
Hanley is also not very good at voices, jumping register from one line of dialogue to the next; dialogue which is mostly unnatural and unconvincing to begin with. The characters often voice thoughts that would not normally make it to explicit utterance, or indulge in meaningless and unjustified rants.
Three years after the book was published in 1931, the police brought a successful charge of obscene libel against it, thus adding to the growing list of literary martyrs of the time. Though, unlike others, the book was not completely suppressed as a result, the scandal apparently impacted Hanley's careers as a novelist.
In his introduction to my edition, Anthony Burgess, agrees with the Times's obituary of Hanley (1985) that he was a "neglected genius of the novel". By my reckoning and the author's own admission, Boy, should certainly not be considered as evidence of this. A, thankfully short, literary curiosity at best.
Two examples of Hanley's opaque or careless writing that stand out:
- When Fearon ostensibly, possibly, engages in sexual intercourse (though it's never really clear at the time that that's what happening), the resulting orgasm reads more like a painful fit than the pleasurable experience that would lead the character to seek a rematch the following night.
- At some point Fearon escapes from the ship he is on by swimming to the shore. Oddly he decides to first take off his socks and put them in his shoes which he has already removed and when he arrives on the quay, otherwise fully dressed, there is no mention of his being wet at all.
In fact, more than not understanding him, it seems that, apart from a few ambivalent exceptions, they also all strongly dislike him. And that's hardly surprising. Fearon, as a character, is infuriating: he is foolish, uncooperative (most, if not all, characters ask of him, repeatedly: "what is the matter with you?"), needy, inconsistent and pathetic.
He forever takes rash decisions, pledging life-long commitment, only to go back on them a few days later. There appears to be no redeeming qualities in him and the tragic and dramatic end of the book, rather than shocking the reader, is in the end rather welcome. He deserves pretty much all that he gets (and that's quite a lot).
And then there is the writing itself.
The foreword to my edition, written by Hanley's son, quotes a comment made by the author himself about the book in 1953: "It took me ten days. Now I realise that is should have taken me much longer than that. So shapeless and crude and overburdened with feelings." And here are the problems of the book neatly and candidly summarised.
The writing is sloppy (I suspect that are many missing words and substitutions), describing situations as if through some sort of limiting tunnel vision, which means the reader is often wondering what is actually going on.
Hanley is also not very good at voices, jumping register from one line of dialogue to the next; dialogue which is mostly unnatural and unconvincing to begin with. The characters often voice thoughts that would not normally make it to explicit utterance, or indulge in meaningless and unjustified rants.
Three years after the book was published in 1931, the police brought a successful charge of obscene libel against it, thus adding to the growing list of literary martyrs of the time. Though, unlike others, the book was not completely suppressed as a result, the scandal apparently impacted Hanley's careers as a novelist.
In his introduction to my edition, Anthony Burgess, agrees with the Times's obituary of Hanley (1985) that he was a "neglected genius of the novel". By my reckoning and the author's own admission, Boy, should certainly not be considered as evidence of this. A, thankfully short, literary curiosity at best.
Two examples of Hanley's opaque or careless writing that stand out:
- When Fearon ostensibly, possibly, engages in sexual intercourse (though it's never really clear at the time that that's what happening), the resulting orgasm reads more like a painful fit than the pleasurable experience that would lead the character to seek a rematch the following night.
- At some point Fearon escapes from the ship he is on by swimming to the shore. Oddly he decides to first take off his socks and put them in his shoes which he has already removed and when he arrives on the quay, otherwise fully dressed, there is no mention of his being wet at all.
January 6, 2014
When i read this book several years ago I found the prose in places to be simply wrong in places and at times to fall below the line one normally expects from a published author, (just my opinion). However, as years have passed by the odd style in which this book has been written has left a deep impression on my mind and the memory of this book remains vivid to this day.
Very briefly, the book tells the story of a poor working class teenage boy's life torrid homelike, his first job, through to his running away to sea and the awful experiences he experiences there.
This book, and its tale of real abuse and suffering, has stayed with me since i put the book down several years ago. It is a powerful book. Some may not like the style or the content but i would be surprised if anyone could contradict its undiluted power and the message conveyed and as such i found it a real tour de force.
Very briefly, the book tells the story of a poor working class teenage boy's life torrid homelike, his first job, through to his running away to sea and the awful experiences he experiences there.
This book, and its tale of real abuse and suffering, has stayed with me since i put the book down several years ago. It is a powerful book. Some may not like the style or the content but i would be surprised if anyone could contradict its undiluted power and the message conveyed and as such i found it a real tour de force.
December 5, 2022
Promising but disappointing due to the weird inner monologues of the characters.
April 9, 2020
This is a good book that could have easily been better with some judicious changes. Dickensian -- but without the humour -- it does not always succeed in avoiding a melodramatic tone, which unfortunately dulls the power of the story.
There are inconsistencies that should have been ironed out - namely, the boy's age, the length of time he spends working on the docks, the kind of work he does there, etc. Different accounts of these details appear in different parts of the novel and it's clear to me that the initial part was re-written but there was a failure to update the rest of the story to reflect these changes.
Far too many characters are introduced once the boy is aboard the ship, with virtually nothing to distinguish one from the other, so that in the end they all tend to roll into one. If I were in a charitable mood I might say that this reflects the boy's own perspective, but that rationalization doesn't convince even myself: first, because the story is not always narrated from the boy's viewpoint; and secondly because, given the circumstances (the boy being all alone and lacking in emotional support), you'd actually expect him to be particularly sensitive to any (even slight) differences among the ship's crew.
The boy's own voice is also not always convincing, though that of the crew is.
In short, this is a work that is rather rough around the edges. I think it's still worth reading, though. This is not only because it's well plotted, but also because it affords a realistic insight into the horrors that boys such as the main character in the story must have endured in those circumstances, and no doubt continue to endure in different contexts around the world in the present day.
Same sex-desire only ever appears in the form of attempted (but successfully fended-off) abuse; so, this fits my 'allusively homoerotic to gay themed' shelf in only an awkward way.
There are inconsistencies that should have been ironed out - namely, the boy's age, the length of time he spends working on the docks, the kind of work he does there, etc. Different accounts of these details appear in different parts of the novel and it's clear to me that the initial part was re-written but there was a failure to update the rest of the story to reflect these changes.
Far too many characters are introduced once the boy is aboard the ship, with virtually nothing to distinguish one from the other, so that in the end they all tend to roll into one. If I were in a charitable mood I might say that this reflects the boy's own perspective, but that rationalization doesn't convince even myself: first, because the story is not always narrated from the boy's viewpoint; and secondly because, given the circumstances (the boy being all alone and lacking in emotional support), you'd actually expect him to be particularly sensitive to any (even slight) differences among the ship's crew.
The boy's own voice is also not always convincing, though that of the crew is.
In short, this is a work that is rather rough around the edges. I think it's still worth reading, though. This is not only because it's well plotted, but also because it affords a realistic insight into the horrors that boys such as the main character in the story must have endured in those circumstances, and no doubt continue to endure in different contexts around the world in the present day.
Same sex-desire only ever appears in the form of attempted (but successfully fended-off) abuse; so, this fits my 'allusively homoerotic to gay themed' shelf in only an awkward way.
September 16, 2017
The story left me with a lukewarm feeling.
The first third does a good job of illuminating the boy's circumstances - you do start to feel pity and even compassion when he's treated badly by his dominant father who completely shoves the boy's wishes for his life aside.
But this slight emotional connection degraded to indifference during the rest of the story, which is mainly because the boy is - a failure.
He gives in to his weakness and goes from bad to worse, though the obscenities the book has been banned for are quite tame for today's standards. The language is simple though not too graphic.
My problem with this book was the lack of emotional connection. Yes, nothing good happens to the boy, but in the end he brought it on himself for his physical and mental weakness as well as his naivity.
I also had no emotional connection to The Kid in Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, but the character The Judge was captivating and there were so many disturbing things happening, it was impossible not to have an impact.
The impact of The Boy however, was quite lacking.
The first third does a good job of illuminating the boy's circumstances - you do start to feel pity and even compassion when he's treated badly by his dominant father who completely shoves the boy's wishes for his life aside.
But this slight emotional connection degraded to indifference during the rest of the story, which is mainly because the boy is - a failure.
He gives in to his weakness and goes from bad to worse, though the obscenities the book has been banned for are quite tame for today's standards. The language is simple though not too graphic.
My problem with this book was the lack of emotional connection. Yes, nothing good happens to the boy, but in the end he brought it on himself for his physical and mental weakness as well as his naivity.
I also had no emotional connection to The Kid in Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, but the character The Judge was captivating and there were so many disturbing things happening, it was impossible not to have an impact.
The impact of The Boy however, was quite lacking.
December 19, 2016
I found this a powerful and quite shocking, but not always very convincing, expose of a young boy’s odyssey and his ultimate downfall. Arthur Fearon is a poor working class thirteen-year-old from Liverpool who is forced out of school – where he shows some promise – by his violent father and made to work on the docks. After just one day at the admittedly brutal work he is given, he decides he can’t take it and runs away to sea. But life on board is if anything even more brutal and he is abused by most of his fellow seamen. It’s a graphic and disturbing portrait of cruelty towards a young innocent boy, but its merit as a social document outweighs its literary qualities. The language is overblown and somewhat hysterical and Arthur himself leads life at a constant high pitch which I found wearing and which alienated me from him. It’s all a bit too dramatic, and the characters themselves more like caricatures rather than fully-rounded people. Banned for many years due to its depiction of homosexuality, it’s good to see it still read and enjoyed, but for me it’s more of a literary curiosity than a satisfying work of literature.
April 12, 2018
I can see why the book caused a stir in the 1930s but it’s rather tame compared to todays standards.
October 2, 2025
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
bleak as HELL. i really enjoyed it. very frustrating read! everything is always almost pushed to completion yet nothing ever changes. makes you think….
bleak as HELL. i really enjoyed it. very frustrating read! everything is always almost pushed to completion yet nothing ever changes. makes you think….
October 23, 2025
Cruel and intense. Also called a woman's vagina "her philosophical center" and I'm definitely using that irl. Liked it despite an unkempt style.
June 21, 2009
Disappointingly, I fell for the upscale, paperback edition's highminded literary delusions. Boy is little more than a crudely drawn, overtly Romantic tale of a thirteen-year-old boy who loses his innocence (and that!) as a stowaway on a merchant ship heading for Africa. First published in the early 1930s, I guess Hanley's insistence on putting young Arthur through the wringer of life was meant to be British social realism at its most honest, but the novel is fourth-rate, NAMBLA-worthy, sentimental claptrap . . . and given the novel's willingness to make overt what was best left to metaphor and euphemism, the "obscene" bits are tame and morally conservative to the inth. Ah, vacation reading. Anything--and I mean anything--will do.
September 28, 2008
Everything I read about this book before I read it said that it was this crazy, shocking book that was banned and rarely read and blah blah blah, and so of course I thought, "Awesome!" It wasn't as shocking as I thought (hoped?) it would be. There are some prostitutes, yes, and the title character does go through some pretty awful things, but all-in-all I was hoping for something darker. It's short and easy to get through, and is fairly gritty, but it didn't blow my mind by any means. Which is too bad, because I would have loved to discover a really dark, shocking, forgotten author, but frankly I just don't think Hanley is it.
June 23, 2010
Oh boy...This book was very disappointing to me. It took me a while to realize I was having trouble finding the voice of the story. Sometimes it would jump from one person's thoughts to another in a very sloppy way. I thought character development was close to none, with the exception of "the boy" (of course) and his parents. I wanted this to be a story about a boy's adventure on the sea (a very romantic idea, very similar to the boy's view of his journey). Instead, the hurt and pain and defeat never stopped. At some point, the reader just gives up because there's no hope for this boy. Very depressing, somewhat boring, and honestly, I'm glad it's over. Yuck.
August 8, 2020
I knew little about this book aside from the fact that it had been well regarded by E. M. Forster (one of my favourite authors) as well as William Faulkner and Anthony Burgess. After finishing I can only wish there were more of Hanley's works readily available in print. Like the title (almost shouted - Boy!) this is short, stark and brutal novel which surpised me with it's style and energy. Underneath the sharply conveyed, almost 'realist' dialogue there is a clever modernist novel which explores how easily lives can be ruined by a failing of empathy. Definitely worth more attention - and essential for anyone interested in early 20th century fiction.
March 21, 2021
Boy is a dark, depressing, but still eminently readable novel tracing the downfall of a thirteen-year old, Arthur Fearon, as he is withdrawn from school by his impoverished, often abusive parents and set to work. He starts out on the docks cleaning out bilges, but soon runs away to sea with disastrous consequences. This is a hard-hitting novel, so much so that it faced an obscenity prosecution shortly after its original publication in 1931, but it is a forgotten classic that everyone should read.
March 19, 2009
A good read? Yes. Shocking? Fairly. I enjoy Hanley's style, I enjoyed the plot, I thought it was good, but ultimately it didn't deliver the goods. Something seemed to be missing and I can't quite put my finger on what. It was just something bad happens to the boy, something else bad happens to the boy, something worse happens, things are okay for a second, sailors are really creepy, prostitutes etc. But at least it was written well and it was compelling and a quick interesting read.
October 8, 2008
An incredibly dark, bleak book, but well written and very engaging. It's a compelling, albeit brutal, story.
March 15, 2014
I read this book many years ago and it is one that I will always return to.
October 17, 2017
3.25? Review to be posted on the blog.
December 22, 2017
marked down a star bc it was so damn depressing
December 6, 2020
Letto perché menzionato da EM Forster. Si legge velocemente ma certo non è un libro leggero; senz'altro fa ben capire che cosa voglia dire essere solo un "ragazzo"...
December 20, 2023
Interesting but extremely depressing and brutal
June 20, 2025
Boy is about 13 year old Arthur, who is forced to leave school and go to work. After quitting his first job because of sexual abuse on his first day, he fears his fathers wrath so he sneaks onboard a ship. After being found three days later, almost dead, the captain agrees to take the boy on to work.
Arthur is also sexually abused and taken advantage on by the crew, too. His mental and physical states deteriorate through the novel. I won't explain the ending, but it's tragic and terrible.
This book was published in the 1930's and promptly banned for its sexual content. It's labelled as LGBT on Goodreads but I firmly disagree. While most of the sexual scenes were between Arthur and other men/boys, it wasn't consensual and was written as a power play - toxic masculinity that had people using their power over a child.
I gave it three stars because it wasn't a terrible book, and was short, but it definitely should not have been tagged as LGBT. Going into it with that in mind, I had completely different expectations.
Arthur is also sexually abused and taken advantage on by the crew, too. His mental and physical states deteriorate through the novel. I won't explain the ending, but it's tragic and terrible.
This book was published in the 1930's and promptly banned for its sexual content. It's labelled as LGBT on Goodreads but I firmly disagree. While most of the sexual scenes were between Arthur and other men/boys, it wasn't consensual and was written as a power play - toxic masculinity that had people using their power over a child.
I gave it three stars because it wasn't a terrible book, and was short, but it definitely should not have been tagged as LGBT. Going into it with that in mind, I had completely different expectations.
November 5, 2025
Boy (1931) makes Jude the Obscure (1895) look like a light P. G. Wodehouse farce. James Hanley's short novel is essentially a series of increasingly shocking events in a Liverpudlian adolescent's life (Arthur Fearon) as he is forced to leave school where, despite being gifted, his standards have started to slip because he realises there is no future there and is shouted at and beaten by his teacher; and then forced to work in a shipyard - gruelling work which he hates. Fearon then jumps aboard a ship, wrongly assuming the sailor's life is the one for him. He almost dies and then is almost raped - a pattern that tends to characterise the rest of his short life. Fearon's major act of free will punishes him terribly. As the protagonist himself observes, he is in hell. Unrelentingly grim, in other words, but powerful nonetheless, and (as Anthony Burgess notes in his introduction) powerful because of Hanley's artistry, since the scenes are described in a clear and direct style.
August 7, 2024
Power and gender. Some people say that “boy” is a different gender from “man” — this book sets out to prove it. The protagonist, gentle Arthur Fearon, is only 12 years old when he leaves school and begins work on the docks. An abusive father and gang rape from the other boys leads Arthur to run away. At sea, the sexual exploitation of Arthur only continues, and with it the routine abuse of adult sailors for a boy in their ranks. Only when Arthur sleeps with a prostitute does he taste power for himself. The first incident sends him into a traumatized fit; the second, he seeks out, and briefly becomes just like his father and the men who abused him.
Throughout the whole book, the reader wishes just one adult would show Arthur a scrap of kindness. That wish is granted at the very end, in the worst way.
Throughout the whole book, the reader wishes just one adult would show Arthur a scrap of kindness. That wish is granted at the very end, in the worst way.
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September 14, 2022Very complicated feelings on this book. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but that wasn’t really the point of reading it for me. It definitely captured me and I couldn’t put it down— I guess a good analogy would be that Arthur Fearon’s life is like a car crash. Some parts made me less emotional than I thought they would, while others that I wasn’t expecting to get to me did. Huh!
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