What do you think?
Rate this book
The Wrong Child
How far would you go to protect your child?
Most people believe one child is to blame for what happened.
But could a young boy really be responsible? And what lengths will his parents go to protect him?
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2016
24 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Barry Gornell
4 books6 followersBarry Gornell was born in Liverpool and now lives on the West Coast of Scotland. He is supported by his wife.
He is a novelist/screenwriter, ex-firefighter, truck driver and book shop manager. His short films Sonny’s Pride and The Race were broadcast on STV.
Graduating from the University of Glasgow Creative Writing Masters programme in 2008, he was awarded a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Bursary in 2009.
His short fiction has been published in the Herald newspaper, Let’s Pretend, 37 stories about (in)fidelity, Gutter 03 and Gutter 04.
The Healing of Luther Grove was his first novel published in 2012, followed by The Wrong Child in 2016.
He is a novelist/screenwriter, ex-firefighter, truck driver and book shop manager. His short films Sonny’s Pride and The Race were broadcast on STV.
Graduating from the University of Glasgow Creative Writing Masters programme in 2008, he was awarded a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Bursary in 2009.
His short fiction has been published in the Herald newspaper, Let’s Pretend, 37 stories about (in)fidelity, Gutter 03 and Gutter 04.
The Healing of Luther Grove was his first novel published in 2012, followed by The Wrong Child in 2016.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 45 reviews
May 25, 2016
‘It was the last child’s final morning.’
Once, there were twenty-two children living with their families in a rural village. But then a disaster claimed the life of twenty-one of those children. Twenty-one trees have been planted in memory of those children. The surviving child, known as Dog Evans, wanted to be a tree.
Dog Evans has lived alone since just before he turned sixteen. His parents, suffering from guilt over the survival of their son, abandoned him. As the story unfolds, we discover that there are other reasons, too, for their abandonment. Dog Evans is shunned by the other villagers: he reminds them of their unbearable loss.
The novel opens six years after the disaster, moving between the past before the disaster and the present. In the present are the bereaved parents and other villagers. Some relationships have fractured; people have found different ways of dealing with their pain. In the past, in the world the children still occupy, the story moves towards the disaster. What happened? Why did it happen? Will any of the survivors be able to pick up their lives and move on? Can Deborah Cutter find life meaningful without the numbing effects of alcohol and sex? Will she reconcile with her husband John? And Dog Evans’s parents? How could they leave him?
The other characters include a particularly ineffectual priest, Father Wittin. The local postman, Nugget Storrie has a particular role to play in this dark tale of revenge and retribution.
This is an unsettling read. Few of the characters are likeable or admirable. While they can justify their actions to each other, mostly, most readers will apply different standards. And yet, is it possible that revenge can be cathartic?
It’s not possible for me to write more about this novel without introducing spoilers, and I don’t want to do that. Much of the suspense in this novel is learning about what happens as events unfold in the present, or as they are reported in the past. It’s a novel where concentration is required to keep track of characters and events. It’s a novel that reminds the reader that events cannot always easily be characterized as good or evil. It’s also a novel that left me feeling unsettled, and wondering about the impact of love or of its absence.
Note: My thanks to Freight Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Once, there were twenty-two children living with their families in a rural village. But then a disaster claimed the life of twenty-one of those children. Twenty-one trees have been planted in memory of those children. The surviving child, known as Dog Evans, wanted to be a tree.
Dog Evans has lived alone since just before he turned sixteen. His parents, suffering from guilt over the survival of their son, abandoned him. As the story unfolds, we discover that there are other reasons, too, for their abandonment. Dog Evans is shunned by the other villagers: he reminds them of their unbearable loss.
The novel opens six years after the disaster, moving between the past before the disaster and the present. In the present are the bereaved parents and other villagers. Some relationships have fractured; people have found different ways of dealing with their pain. In the past, in the world the children still occupy, the story moves towards the disaster. What happened? Why did it happen? Will any of the survivors be able to pick up their lives and move on? Can Deborah Cutter find life meaningful without the numbing effects of alcohol and sex? Will she reconcile with her husband John? And Dog Evans’s parents? How could they leave him?
The other characters include a particularly ineffectual priest, Father Wittin. The local postman, Nugget Storrie has a particular role to play in this dark tale of revenge and retribution.
This is an unsettling read. Few of the characters are likeable or admirable. While they can justify their actions to each other, mostly, most readers will apply different standards. And yet, is it possible that revenge can be cathartic?
It’s not possible for me to write more about this novel without introducing spoilers, and I don’t want to do that. Much of the suspense in this novel is learning about what happens as events unfold in the present, or as they are reported in the past. It’s a novel where concentration is required to keep track of characters and events. It’s a novel that reminds the reader that events cannot always easily be characterized as good or evil. It’s also a novel that left me feeling unsettled, and wondering about the impact of love or of its absence.
Note: My thanks to Freight Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
November 27, 2017
Book reviews on ww.snazzybooks.com
The Wrong Child is a dark and at times uncomfortable novel which I finished not knowing quite how to feel about it!
The story itself is pretty harrowing – a young boy, Douglas (unaffectionately known as ‘Dog’) Evans, is left as the only survivor after a horrible incident kills all the other children in his class. You might think he'd be cherished even more, as the one survivor, but his unpopularity prior to the event means that the rest of the village do NOT take this well.
The Wrong Child a story of conflicting emotions, or at least for me – at times I felt desperately sorry for Dog, whilst at others I myself felt frustrated by, or disgusted in, his behavior. Nothing can justify the way the villagers behaved though – truly shocking.
The narrative also moves back and forwards in time, showing the reader more and more about what really happened, and I always find myself really drawn to novels like t his. There’s plenty of suspense, and I don’t really want to give anything crucial away so I’ll just say that Barry Gornell manages to create a tense, heavy atmosphere which intrigued me. It’s not an easy or ‘enjoyable’ read as such - and I imagine this would only be amplified more if you had kids yourself (I do not) - but it will stick with you long after you finish it, which is the mark of a great writer!
Many thanks to Orion for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.
The Wrong Child is a dark and at times uncomfortable novel which I finished not knowing quite how to feel about it!
The story itself is pretty harrowing – a young boy, Douglas (unaffectionately known as ‘Dog’) Evans, is left as the only survivor after a horrible incident kills all the other children in his class. You might think he'd be cherished even more, as the one survivor, but his unpopularity prior to the event means that the rest of the village do NOT take this well.
The Wrong Child a story of conflicting emotions, or at least for me – at times I felt desperately sorry for Dog, whilst at others I myself felt frustrated by, or disgusted in, his behavior. Nothing can justify the way the villagers behaved though – truly shocking.
The narrative also moves back and forwards in time, showing the reader more and more about what really happened, and I always find myself really drawn to novels like t his. There’s plenty of suspense, and I don’t really want to give anything crucial away so I’ll just say that Barry Gornell manages to create a tense, heavy atmosphere which intrigued me. It’s not an easy or ‘enjoyable’ read as such - and I imagine this would only be amplified more if you had kids yourself (I do not) - but it will stick with you long after you finish it, which is the mark of a great writer!
Many thanks to Orion for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.
August 14, 2017
The Wrong Child
by
Barry Gornell
The Wrong Child would have rate as one of the worst audio books I have listened to. I specify audiobooks, as some reviewers have rated it quite the opposite. The only reason, I can think of for a high rating, is that it is a book to 'read'.
The narrator, while not as good as Sean Mangan, was reasonably good and he did his best to hold his audience's attention.
The Wrong Child is supposed to be a story about a town where twenty-one of twenty-two children were killed in an accident. However, the accident was not described, or explained, as far as I can remember until the last few minutes of the forty-second, and last track, or chapter.
And sadly The Wrong Child had nothing to do with a child being kidnapped or some other such event. Rather The Wrong Child was the one who was not killed and unfortunately, for him, none of the townsfolk, including his parents, liked him.
Aside from all of the above other low-lights, planted in my mind, included, but we're not limited to:
* A man walking into a school classroom and frightening the students
* A man digging a grave, stripping naked, folding his clothes and then? We don't know because the story took one of its many leaps which left me wondering had I missed a chapter.
* The surviving child, known as ‘Dog’ (not Douglas) liked to masturbate which was described in detail on several occasions.
* The local priest was not as celibate as he was supposed to be.
All in all it was The Wrong Book for me, at least
by
Barry Gornell
The Wrong Child would have rate as one of the worst audio books I have listened to. I specify audiobooks, as some reviewers have rated it quite the opposite. The only reason, I can think of for a high rating, is that it is a book to 'read'.
The narrator, while not as good as Sean Mangan, was reasonably good and he did his best to hold his audience's attention.
The Wrong Child is supposed to be a story about a town where twenty-one of twenty-two children were killed in an accident. However, the accident was not described, or explained, as far as I can remember until the last few minutes of the forty-second, and last track, or chapter.
And sadly The Wrong Child had nothing to do with a child being kidnapped or some other such event. Rather The Wrong Child was the one who was not killed and unfortunately, for him, none of the townsfolk, including his parents, liked him.
Aside from all of the above other low-lights, planted in my mind, included, but we're not limited to:
* A man walking into a school classroom and frightening the students
* A man digging a grave, stripping naked, folding his clothes and then? We don't know because the story took one of its many leaps which left me wondering had I missed a chapter.
* The surviving child, known as ‘Dog’ (not Douglas) liked to masturbate which was described in detail on several occasions.
* The local priest was not as celibate as he was supposed to be.
All in all it was The Wrong Book for me, at least
April 9, 2017
Despite the rather dark story content, this was a clever depiction of a rather complex situation. The author cleverly moved backwards and forwards in time carefully releasing a little more of the story each time. The character studies were excellent. I listened to this as an audio book and I think that helped to really bring the story alive. I really enjoyed the novel and the rather quirky and macabre story line.
May 4, 2018
the wrong child by Barry Gornell.
A tragedy in a small town.
Everyone is affected.
Most people believe one child is to blame for what happened.
But could one little boy really be responsible?
And what lengths will his parents go to protect him?
a fantastic read. loved the story I was engrossed from start to finish 5*.
A tragedy in a small town.
Everyone is affected.
Most people believe one child is to blame for what happened.
But could one little boy really be responsible?
And what lengths will his parents go to protect him?
a fantastic read. loved the story I was engrossed from start to finish 5*.
May 4, 2018
the wrong child by Barry Gornell.
A tragedy in a small town.
Everyone is affected.
Most people believe one child is to blame for what happened.
But could one little boy really be responsible?
And what lengths will his parents go to protect him?
a fantastic read. loved the story I was engrossed from start to finish 5*.
A tragedy in a small town.
Everyone is affected.
Most people believe one child is to blame for what happened.
But could one little boy really be responsible?
And what lengths will his parents go to protect him?
a fantastic read. loved the story I was engrossed from start to finish 5*.
October 10, 2019
I find this very difficult to rate. The first half had me gripped. A tragedy at a school, a whole cast of children involved in the tragedy and the sole survivor. It then started getting weird with events that didn't seem that relevant to the plot. It lost its momentum for me,however I still found myself reading it quickly to find out the end.
December 19, 2017
Review to come in new year!
November 13, 2017
Well, I feel utterly wiped out after reading this novel. I’m also feeling unsettled and with one huge question in my mind – is it ever possible to have peace of mind, if that peace is predicated on someone else’s murder?
Barry Gornell’s book is a chilling, dark and atmospheric tale of a boy named Dog who was the last child left standing after an horrific event killed all the other 21 children in a school.
From the beginning, this story reminded me of what it must have been like for the parents of the 116 Aberfan children killed in that mining disaster in 1966.
This is a bleak and harrowing story that will chill your bones and make you yearn for log fires, hot chocolate with whipped cream and a puppy to cuddle.
Set in winter in an unnamed remote village in in Scotland, this novel alternates between two timelines; the present day and seven years earlier approaching the disastrous event.
Douglas ‘Dog’ Foster is a young man, living alone on the edge of the village on marshland. At the beginning of the book we learn that he is a boy with moist skin that appears translucent, with grey eyes and salmon lips. His arm is grafted with pigskin. The imagery is of cold, rot, decay and disrepair.
Dog was never a popular child and the village is both appalled and disgusted that he was the only survivor. Knowing he was an odd child has not helped the attitude of villagers, and Dog has spent the last seven years living alone and being ostracised and demonised by the community.
Then, seven years after the disaster, on the anniversary of the children’s deaths, when the villagers form their annual pilgrimage to the school to commemorate the dead with a candlelight vigil beside the 21 trees they have planted in memoriam, they are confronted by a sight that horrifies them.
For Dog is there, making a display of himself. For the community, this act of heresy is an outrage too far. One of the bereaved parents strikes him dead and the others implicate themselves with the crime by silently burying him.
It is now that we begin to see the impact that their children’s deaths have had on the individuals in this community. Marriages have been wrenched apart, alcohol, drugs and sex have all played their part in tearing at the moral fabric of this community and even the priest has not been immune from the septic nature of the poison the seeps through this place.
Then someone burns down Dog’s cottage and another body is found. Dog’s parents are told of his death and they return to understand his death after 7 years of staying away and leaving him to fend for himself.
How they interact with those who used to be their neighbours and friends;why they left and whether they can find out and handle the truth about their son’s death is where the heart of this story lies.
This is not an easy book to read and it asks some extraordinarily hard questions of the reader.
What’s really interesting about the prose here is that it is completely non-judgemental, yet you find yourself judging your own thoughts and feelings as well as those of the protagonists.
This is a harsh, uncompromising and unflinching book which is a compelling and fascinating study in morality and redemption. That Gornell is a hugely talented novelist is beyond doubt. The Wrong Child will stay with me for a long time to come. Originally published by Freight Books, Orion has picked this book up and hopefully it will now receive the wider audience it so richly deserves.
But quick, someone, pass me that puppy.
Barry Gornell’s book is a chilling, dark and atmospheric tale of a boy named Dog who was the last child left standing after an horrific event killed all the other 21 children in a school.
From the beginning, this story reminded me of what it must have been like for the parents of the 116 Aberfan children killed in that mining disaster in 1966.
This is a bleak and harrowing story that will chill your bones and make you yearn for log fires, hot chocolate with whipped cream and a puppy to cuddle.
Set in winter in an unnamed remote village in in Scotland, this novel alternates between two timelines; the present day and seven years earlier approaching the disastrous event.
Douglas ‘Dog’ Foster is a young man, living alone on the edge of the village on marshland. At the beginning of the book we learn that he is a boy with moist skin that appears translucent, with grey eyes and salmon lips. His arm is grafted with pigskin. The imagery is of cold, rot, decay and disrepair.
Dog was never a popular child and the village is both appalled and disgusted that he was the only survivor. Knowing he was an odd child has not helped the attitude of villagers, and Dog has spent the last seven years living alone and being ostracised and demonised by the community.
Then, seven years after the disaster, on the anniversary of the children’s deaths, when the villagers form their annual pilgrimage to the school to commemorate the dead with a candlelight vigil beside the 21 trees they have planted in memoriam, they are confronted by a sight that horrifies them.
For Dog is there, making a display of himself. For the community, this act of heresy is an outrage too far. One of the bereaved parents strikes him dead and the others implicate themselves with the crime by silently burying him.
It is now that we begin to see the impact that their children’s deaths have had on the individuals in this community. Marriages have been wrenched apart, alcohol, drugs and sex have all played their part in tearing at the moral fabric of this community and even the priest has not been immune from the septic nature of the poison the seeps through this place.
Then someone burns down Dog’s cottage and another body is found. Dog’s parents are told of his death and they return to understand his death after 7 years of staying away and leaving him to fend for himself.
How they interact with those who used to be their neighbours and friends;why they left and whether they can find out and handle the truth about their son’s death is where the heart of this story lies.
This is not an easy book to read and it asks some extraordinarily hard questions of the reader.
What’s really interesting about the prose here is that it is completely non-judgemental, yet you find yourself judging your own thoughts and feelings as well as those of the protagonists.
This is a harsh, uncompromising and unflinching book which is a compelling and fascinating study in morality and redemption. That Gornell is a hugely talented novelist is beyond doubt. The Wrong Child will stay with me for a long time to come. Originally published by Freight Books, Orion has picked this book up and hopefully it will now receive the wider audience it so richly deserves.
But quick, someone, pass me that puppy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 4, 2018
Oh. My. Gosh. Oh. My. Flipping. Gosh! I recently read a book which totally blew me away and surpassed every other read to make it to the number one spot on my 'books of the year' list. Little did I expect at the time that a similar thing would happen, only a month or so later! The Wrong Child by Barry Gornell is a book I have seen mentioned on only a small number of blogs. This is a travesty. More people need to read this exceptional book. More people need to immerse themselves in the dark and destructive world of Dog Evans and the broken people left behind.
On a fateful snowy day, the roof of the local school collapses killing everyone inside. Everyone except Douglas 'Dog' Evans. So many young lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye, children ranging in age from 5 to 12. How would you expect a small town of close-knit neighbours and friends to react to such a disaster? Lots of support, revering the lone survivor? Certainly not, not when the survivor is Dog Evans. Dog Evans is The Wrong Child. Of all the children to survive, why did it have to be him? Dog becomes the emblem of everything the town has lost, everything that's missing and the reason why every single day hurts.
The reader meets Dog Evans some seven years later. No longer is he an adolescent thirteen-year-old but a young man, approaching his twentieth birthday. Dog has been abandoned by his parents, as a child, left to fend in every which way for himself. The sheer guilt of being Dog's parents has driven them away. The reader questions the morality of Dog's parents, Shep and Rebecca as they apparently willingly walk away from their one child. It's only as you progress through the story that the author begins to give you snippets of information, glances into the past and expertly begins to build this small town's painful story.
Each chapter is either set in the present day, seven years after the incident, or the past. The chapters set in the past focus on each of the children killed that day and the lead up to the tragedy. What I found incredibly eerie and unsettling was that each chapter is headed by a partially burnt photo of the child the chapter is about. This is a devastating tale in itself but these photos added so much more emotion for me. My heart ached for these fictional children. I was mesmerised.
The town is one hundred percent guilty and to watch these characters deal with that guilt in their differing ways was a riveting experience for me. The priest, Father Wittin, was a particularly interesting case (I can't say any more, buy the book to find out what I'm on about!). A glance into the dark side of human nature...
Would I recommend this book? Oh my goodness, I will go on about this book for YEARS to come. It's hypnotic and so beautifully dark. I was enchanted and disgusted in equal measure, it's absolutely everything I want in a book. I am traumatised but I LOVED it. I could not put this book down, nor did I want to. Easily one of my books of the year (one for the books of all time list..?). I was left heartbroken that it was over. Absolute literary perfection!
Five out of five stars.
I chose to read and review an ARC of The Wrong Child. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.
On a fateful snowy day, the roof of the local school collapses killing everyone inside. Everyone except Douglas 'Dog' Evans. So many young lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye, children ranging in age from 5 to 12. How would you expect a small town of close-knit neighbours and friends to react to such a disaster? Lots of support, revering the lone survivor? Certainly not, not when the survivor is Dog Evans. Dog Evans is The Wrong Child. Of all the children to survive, why did it have to be him? Dog becomes the emblem of everything the town has lost, everything that's missing and the reason why every single day hurts.
The reader meets Dog Evans some seven years later. No longer is he an adolescent thirteen-year-old but a young man, approaching his twentieth birthday. Dog has been abandoned by his parents, as a child, left to fend in every which way for himself. The sheer guilt of being Dog's parents has driven them away. The reader questions the morality of Dog's parents, Shep and Rebecca as they apparently willingly walk away from their one child. It's only as you progress through the story that the author begins to give you snippets of information, glances into the past and expertly begins to build this small town's painful story.
Each chapter is either set in the present day, seven years after the incident, or the past. The chapters set in the past focus on each of the children killed that day and the lead up to the tragedy. What I found incredibly eerie and unsettling was that each chapter is headed by a partially burnt photo of the child the chapter is about. This is a devastating tale in itself but these photos added so much more emotion for me. My heart ached for these fictional children. I was mesmerised.
The town is one hundred percent guilty and to watch these characters deal with that guilt in their differing ways was a riveting experience for me. The priest, Father Wittin, was a particularly interesting case (I can't say any more, buy the book to find out what I'm on about!). A glance into the dark side of human nature...
Would I recommend this book? Oh my goodness, I will go on about this book for YEARS to come. It's hypnotic and so beautifully dark. I was enchanted and disgusted in equal measure, it's absolutely everything I want in a book. I am traumatised but I LOVED it. I could not put this book down, nor did I want to. Easily one of my books of the year (one for the books of all time list..?). I was left heartbroken that it was over. Absolute literary perfection!
Five out of five stars.
I chose to read and review an ARC of The Wrong Child. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.
January 15, 2023
A story of individual and collective grief, of a town both held together and torn apart by tragedy. A collective ultimately bound by hatred and murder.
I wasn't sure what to make of this novel before I read it and now that I'm finished I'm still not 100% sure. It certainly tackles some complicated and deep emotions and problems and it delves into corners of human experience many people aim to avoid. Ultimately the elements of mystery keep you guessing and the immense feeling of loss provokes emotion.
Its not a book I'd recommend to everyone, but I am pleased I read it!
I wasn't sure what to make of this novel before I read it and now that I'm finished I'm still not 100% sure. It certainly tackles some complicated and deep emotions and problems and it delves into corners of human experience many people aim to avoid. Ultimately the elements of mystery keep you guessing and the immense feeling of loss provokes emotion.
Its not a book I'd recommend to everyone, but I am pleased I read it!
February 11, 2024
Hmm. Not run of the mill, this novel about the aftermath of an accident at a school in a remote Scottish village, the effects seven years later on those left behind, it was ambitious and I felt the author was successful in suggesting how such events could fracture a community utterly. However, I found it all too relentlessly dark, too grim, too brutal and violent. I found the skipping back and forth in time confusing and the cast of characters too large to keep a handle on - at times chapters felt only like writing exercises, disconnected from what else was going on. So I didn't enjoy the experience of reading this - which is unusual because most of the darkest crime novels and psychological thrillers I have read have left me less worn down by the black side of things than this unrelentingly depressive tale did.
January 4, 2020
I am not really sure what to say about this book it kept me gripped in wanting to know what happens next but it wasn't great! I am not sure whether it was the heart renching topic or just how it was written.
August 1, 2021
This is a very dark but interesting and thought provoking book. Possibly not to be recommended as a light holiday read but well worth reading.
It is a bit different to anything I've read recently, which I think added to my enjoyment.
It is a bit different to anything I've read recently, which I think added to my enjoyment.
March 8, 2018
I didn’t like this as much as Elmet - which this reminded me of substantially - but it’s still a haunting exercise in tone and setting.
April 28, 2018
3.8 This is a very dark story with a few twists and turns. Almost a mystery.
October 10, 2018
Did not enjoy this story at all. Some boys just didn’t make sense at all and it was all really very far fetched. Wouldn’t recommend.
February 25, 2019
Slow to start, but I found this book thought provoking and very sad, a good read though and as I say makes you think xx
April 11, 2019
Good throughout, but that ending kind of ruined it for me.
May 11, 2019
Not my usual choice of crime/thriller , the description on the cover was misleading . Nether less , it was a good read which I found hard to put down .
Displaying 1 - 20 of 45 reviews