In Review

21 November 2008 23:27 BST

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Published by Walker Books , out now, hardback, 479 pages, £ 12.99.

In a nutshell...

Coming of age out loud

What's it all about?

Todd Hewitt is angry about a lot of things: His mother's death; his father's disappearance; his dim-witted and loud-mouthed dog and his domineering carers; most of all, he's annoyed with being the only person in Prentisstown not yet to have reached manhood.

For when his people came to the New World as settlers, they were exposed to a disease that killed all the women and made all men's private thoughts audible. More than audible, they were inescapable, making Todd's whole town a detestable blur of the angry ramblings of a society on its way to extinction. And then one day, on the outskirts of town, he hears silence. Which is impossible in Prentisstown, or else the town's been lying to him.

Who's it by?

Acclaimed novelist and journalist Patrick Ness. After beginning life on an army base near Alexandria, Virginia, Ness and his family moved to Hawaii where he spent part of his childhood. He then moved back to the states, studying English literature at the University of Southern California. He moved to England in 1999, where he occasionally teaches creative writing at Oxford. He is the author of two well-received pieces of adult fiction and this, his first book of a series written for younger readers. He has also contributed to the Guardian and regularly writes book reviews.

As an example...

"Well of course we have lying here. New World and the town where I'm from (avoiding saying the name, avoiding thinking the name) seems to be nothing but lies. But that's different. I said it before, men lie all the time, to theirselves, to other men, to the world at large, but who can tell when it's a strand in all the other lies and truths floating around outta yer head? Everyone knows yer lying but everyone else is lying, too, so how can it matter? What does it change? It's just part of the river of a man, part of his Noise, and sometimes you can pick it out, sometimes you can't.

But he never stops being himself when he does it."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

There is a distinct possibility that a studio will want to pick this up following the recent success of the film adaptation of Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights. Ness will no doubt gain many young fans with this book, which also contains the kind of emotional subtlety, profundity and compassion to keep adult readers entertained. If this book is made into a film, there will definitely be an audience to watch it; the question, as with The Golden Compass, is whether or not it can be transferred onto the big screen competently. This book is a singular achievement and it will take direction of the highest order to do it justice.

What the others say...

"One of the best first sentences I've ever read and a book that lives up to it!" Frank Cottrell-Boyce

So is it any good?

The Knife of Never Letting Go is an impossibly good novel. It is at once endearing yet unsentimental; compassionate yet damning; exhaustingly exhilarating and yet tempered by a staid and considered emotivity. Written in the first-person present tense in an unapologetically impudent manner, this novel captures exceptionally the brash bravado and the underlying insecurities that actively teem inside the minds and explode in the actions of boys on their path to manhood. Although this is a book aimed at children, it will find older fans too, for Ness here touches upon something cogent and universal. Having a young target audience does not affect the fact that he deserves to be recognised as one of literature's great raconteurs.

9/10

Mark Burton

"This book is amazing. I couldn't put it down!" - Louise M

"This book is very good and is a must for young adults. But beware of the ending and there might be a possible three books." - Alex Reilly