His Illegal Self

Hardcover

1st

Fiction

270

2018-06-26 18:17:16

It is 1972 and Ch , a precocious seven-almost-eight-year-old boy, leads a rather bourgeois life on Park Avenue with his eccentric grandmother. His parents are young radicals in hiding from the FBI-he has never even met his father and he last saw his mother at the age of two. Ch is ecstatic when a woman called Dial-who he believes is his mother-appears at his front door to take him out for lunch. They skip the meal and Dial whisks Ch off on a serpentine adventure, luring him with the promise of a big ”surprise” and the idea that he has finally found someone to love. Eventually they find themselves stranded on a turbulent hippie commune in Australia, a lonely boy and a reluctant kidnapper with no one to rely on but each other. His Illegal Self is a love story like no other. Simultaneously sinister and endearing, the incomparable perspectives and vividness of the characters’ voices are mesmerizing. It is impossible not to be moved by the openness and innocence of this young boy, and by his willingness and inherent need to love and to trust anyone and everyone as he seeks out his parents.

Knopf

9781741665352

~$6.05

2024-04-22

2018-06-26 18:17:16