Synopses & Reviews
The village was asleep, with all the people behind the walls and through the windows and up the stairs of the little houses blind and deaf in their beds while anything might happen. Lewis headed down the middle of the road and he kept falling and had to remember to get back on his feet. He reached the churchyard and stood in the dark with the church even darker above him.
-from The Outcast by Sadie Jones
Its 1957. Nineteen-year-old Lewis Aldridge is returning by train to his home in Waterford where he has just served a two-year prison term for a crime that shocked the sleepy Surrey community. Wearing a new suit, he carries money his father Gilbert sent — to keep him away, he suspects — and a straight razor. No one greets him at the station.
Twelve years earlier, seven-year-old Lewis and his spirited mother Elizabeth are on the same train, bringing Gilbert home from war. Waterford is experiencing many such reunions, alcohol lubricating awkward homecomings and community gatherings. The most oppressive of these are the mandatory holiday parties hosted by the towns leading industrialist Dicky Carmichael, Gilberts employer. With the Carmichael estate backing onto the Aldridge property, the attractive and popular Tamsin Carmichael and her precocious kid sister Kit are Lewiss playmates, along with a gaggle of neighbourhood boys who (like Lewis) are fascinated by Tamsin. The children play thrilling and cruel games, mirroring the adults inebriated dysfunction.
Though pleased to be reunited with Elizabeth, Gilbert is appalled by the coddling his son has received in his absence. No longer permitted to skip church for picnics by the river, Elizabeth and Lewis are steered back under the ever-judgmental gaze of Waterford society. Lewis continues to flourish, a naturally capable golden child. But iconoclastic Elizabeth, disappointed by Gilberts insistence on conformity, seeks refuge in the bottle.
Then a sunny riverside picnic ends with Elizabeth dead and ten-year-old Lewis the only witness. A shattered Gilbert is incapable of providing comfort to his young son and the community of Waterford turns away from the traumatized child, now rendered a pariah by tragedy. Lewis is sent to boarding school, summoned home only for holidays. Gilbert remarries five months later to Alice, a compliant beauty who is not up to the task of parenting a damaged child.
Years pass and Lewis, now a troubled teenager, is lost in dangerous and self-harming behaviours. When an incident with a local bully causes Lewis to be even further estranged from the community, Gilbert and Alice stand idly by as Lewis is tormented by the tyrannical Dicky. Enraged, Lewis commits a shocking crime against the whole of Waterford and is sent to prison.
Two years later, upon his shamed return, the town continues to treat Lewis as an outcast. Only Tamsins little sister Kit, now a young woman, sees in him the golden boy he once was. She had become infatuated with Lewis years earlier when he had casually protected her from bullies and broken bicycle chains. But she now faces a much darker and more dangerous sort of bullying at the hands of her father. It is up to Lewis once again to rescue her, redeeming himself through tremendous courage and terrible sacrifice. And perhaps Kit holds the power to rescue him, too.
Winner of the Costa First Novel Award and a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize, Sadie Joness The Outcast introduces us to a clear and brave new voice in British fiction. The novel is a clarion call to us all, daring us to stand up to the bullies of our world, in whatever form they may take and — above all else — to love our children.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
As menacing as it is beautiful,
The Outcast is a devastating portrait of small-town hypocrisy from an astonishing new voice poised for international recognition.
It’s 1957 and Lewis Aldridge is travelling back to his home in the South of England. He is straight out of jail and nineteen years old. His return will trigger the implosion not just of his family, but of a whole community.
A decade earlier, his father’s homecoming casts a different shape. The war is over and Gilbert reverts easily to suburban life — cocktails at six-thirty, church on Sundays — but his wife and young son resist the stuffy routine. Lewis and his mother escape to the woods for picnics, just as they did in wartime days. Nobody is surprised that Gilbert’s wife counters convention, but they are all shocked when, after one of their jaunts, Lewis comes back without her.
Not far away, Kit Carmichael keeps watch. She has always understood more than most, not least from what she is dealt by her own father’s hand. Lewis’s grief and burgeoning rage are all too plain, and Kit makes a private vow to help. But in her attempts to set them both free, she fails to predict the painful and horrifying secrets that must first be forced into the open.
The Outcast is an unforgettable story of transgression and redemption from a powerful new writer.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Sadie Jones was born in London, England, to a Jamaican-born writer and a London-born actress. Jones spent years traveling, working as a waitress and teaching English as a foreign language, before returning to London to work in various filmmaking roles. She then became a screenwriter, a vocation she practised for 15 years, writing for BBC television and feature films.
The Outcast, published in 2008, is her first novel. For it she won the Costa First Novel Award and was a finalist for the Orange Prize. Jones is married to the architect Tim Boyd and they have two children.
About her drive to write The Outcast, Jones says, “It is often said that everybody has a novel in them. Until I wrote The Outcast — compelled to write, as I was — I thought I was an exception this rule. Perhaps I needed a book with enough life to it, that demanded to be written, or perhaps I was simply learning the hard way how to tell stories, I dont know; in many ways its a mystery to me.”
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
The village was asleep, with all the people behind the walls and through the windows and up the stairs of the little houses blind and deaf in their beds while anything might happen. Lewis headed down the middle of the road and he kept falling and had to remember to get back on his feet. He reached the churchyard and stood in the dark with the church even darker above him.
–from The Outcast by Sadie Jones
It’s 1957. Nineteen-year-old Lewis Aldridge is returning by train to his home in Waterford where he has just served a two-year prison term for a crime that shocked the sleepy Surrey community. Wearing a new suit, he carries money his father Gilbert sent — to keep him away, he suspects — and a straight razor. No one greets him at the station.
Twelve years earlier, seven-year-old Lewis and his spirited mother Elizabeth are on the same train, bringing Gilbert home from war. Waterford is experiencing many such reunions, alcohol lubricating awkward homecomings and community gatherings. The most oppressive of these are the mandatory holiday parties hosted by the town’s leading industrialist Dicky Carmichael, Gilbert’s employer. With the Carmichael estate backing onto the Aldridge property, the attractive and popular Tamsin Carmichael and her precocious kid sister Kit are Lewis’s playmates, along with a gaggle of neighbourhood boys who (like Lewis) are fascinated by Tamsin. The children play thrilling and cruel games, mirroring the adults’ inebriated dysfunction.
Though pleased to be reunited with Elizabeth, Gilbert is appalled by the coddling his son has received in his absence. No longer permitted to skip church for picnics by the river, Elizabeth and Lewis are steered back under the ever-judgmental gaze of Waterford society. Lewis continues to flourish, a naturally capable golden child. But iconoclastic Elizabeth, disappointed by Gilbert’s insistence on conformity, seeks refuge in the bottle.
Then a sunny riverside picnic ends with Elizabeth dead and ten-year-old Lewis the only witness. A shattered Gilbert is incapable of providing comfort to his young son and the community of Waterford turns away from the traumatized child, now rendered a pariah by tragedy. Lewis is sent to boarding school, summoned home only for holidays. Gilbert remarries five months later to Alice, a compliant beauty who is not up to the task of parenting a damaged child.
Years pass and Lewis, now a troubled teenager, is lost in dangerous and self-harming behaviours. When an incident with a local bully causes Lewis to be even further estranged from the community, Gilbert and Alice stand idly by as Lewis is tormented by the tyrannical Dicky. Enraged, Lewis commits a shocking crime against the whole of Waterford and is sent to prison.
Two years later, upon his shamed return, the town continues to treat Lewis as an outcast. Only Tamsin’s little sister Kit, now a young woman, sees in him the golden boy he once was. She had become infatuated with Lewis years earlier when he had casually protected her from bullies and broken bicycle chains. But she now faces a much darker and more dangerous sort of bullying at the hands of her father. It is up to Lewis once again to rescue her, redeeming himself through tremendous courage and terrible sacrifice. And perhaps Kit holds the power to rescue him, too.
Winner of the Costa First Novel Award and a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize, Sadie Jones’s The Outcast introduces us to a clear and brave new voice in British fiction. The novel is a clarion call to us all, daring us to stand up to the bullies of our world, in whatever form they may take and — above all else — to love our children.
From the Hardcover edition.
1. Why does Lewis choose to return home after prison, despite being ambivalent towards Waterford and dreading what he’s returning to? What does he hope to achieve?
2. Alcohol plays a significant role in much of the novel’s tragedy, despite the attempts by Waterford society to disguise it in civility. Discuss the impact of alcohol in Waterford community life, particularly in respect to family dysfunction.
3. Discuss sexuality in The Outcast, comparing Lewis’s relationships with the various women in his life. How is each relationship different? What is it that draws these women to him and him to them?
4. Discuss the roles of church and school in this novel. Are they the sites of moral training and education they are held up to be? Why or why not? What is Lewis’s response to them?
5. The people of Waterford generally treat Lewis with contempt and fear rather than compassion. Why do you think this is? In the rare instances in which Lewis receives compassion, how does he react?
6. How does Gilbert react to Lewis’s displays of affection towards him? Why, do you think? How does Gilbert feel about Lewis?
7. Lewis not only seems to attract violence, but at times he appears to seek it. Why do you think this is? Do you think it’s related to his self-cutting compulsion? What does he seek from harming himself?
8. There are recurrent symbols throughout the novel, in particular light and dark, blood, water and rivers, and trains. Choose one of these symbols to explore and discuss its possible meanings.
9. Discuss Oedipus and Jesus as archetypal presences in the novel.
10. Jones describes this novel as a love story, rather than a romance. What do you think is the distinction between the two genres? Did The Outcast remind you of any other novels or movies you’ve encountered?
11. Had Elizabeth not died, what do you think Lewis’s future could have held for him? Will he still be able to achieve that same potential?
12. Compare the ways in which Lewis and Kit manage their difficult lives. How are their coping strategies the same and how are they different? Do you think their relationship will survive?
13. Jones wrote this book using an omniscient narrative technique, allowing us glimpses into the inner thoughts and experiences of many of the characters (though not all of them). What did you think of this strategy? Could the story have been told without it?
14. Jones originally developed The Outcast as a screenplay. Does this surprise you?
1. Why does Lewis choose to return home after prison, despite being ambivalent towards Waterford and dreading what hes returning to? What does he hope to achieve?
2. Alcohol plays a significant role in much of the novels tragedy, despite the attempts by Waterford society to disguise it in civility. Discuss the impact of alcohol in Waterford community life, particularly in respect to family dysfunction.
3. Discuss sexuality in The Outcast, comparing Lewiss relationships with the various women in his life. How is each relationship different? What is it that draws these women to him and him to them?
4. Discuss the roles of church and school in this novel. Are they the sites of moral training and education they are held up to be? Why or why not? What is Lewiss response to them?
5. The people of Waterford generally treat Lewis with contempt and fear rather than compassion. Why do you think this is? In the rare instances in which Lewis receives compassion, how does he react?
6. How does Gilbert react to Lewiss displays of affection towards him? Why, do you think? How does Gilbert feel about Lewis?
7. Lewis not only seems to attract violence, but at times he appears to seek it. Why do you think this is? Do you think its related to his self-cutting compulsion? What does he seek from harming himself?
8. There are recurrent symbols throughout the novel, in particular light and dark, blood, water and rivers, and trains. Choose one of these symbols to explore and discuss its possible meanings.
9. Discuss Oedipus and Jesus as archetypal presences in the novel.
10. Jones describes this novel as a love story, rather than a romance. What do you think is the distinction between the two genres? Did The Outcast remind you of any other novels or movies youve encountered?
11. Had Elizabeth not died, what do you think Lewiss future could have held for him? Will he still be able to achieve that same potential?
12. Compare the ways in which Lewis and Kit manage their difficult lives. How are their coping strategies the same and how are they different? Do you think their relationship will survive?
13. Jones wrote this book using an omniscient narrative technique, allowing us glimpses into the inner thoughts and experiences of many of the characters (though not all of them). What did you think of this strategy? Could the story have been told without it?
14. Jones originally developed The Outcast as a screenplay. Does this surprise you?
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Sadie Jones