- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Penguin; New edition edition (4 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140285784
- ISBN-13: 978-0140285789
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 131,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
With his novels Corpsing and Beatniks, young Brit Lit gunslinger Toby Litt showed he had mastered the essentials of the trendy bestseller. With this poignant, odd, confusing, moving, heartfelt, troubling book he's tried to do an even trickier thing: extend his range and readership upmarket.
The tenor of deadkidsongs is Just William meets Lord of the Flies with a nod to the latter-day works of Nick Hornby, which gives you some idea of what a different-but interesting-book it is. The story concerns four pre-pubescent boys, all members of a gang called Gang, growing up in darkest Devon in the 70s. Against a background of Cold War rumours and Last War memories they play their conkers and cowboys an' injuns, their war and show-us-yer-willy games. Then their clumsy and wistfully innocent Arcadia is overturned when one of them dies; from there the narrative unravels until the reader is not sure who is telling what to whom, nor quite how reliable the teller might be.
To recapture a lost childhood is ambitious enough; Litt's aim is to do that and then some: he wants to say profound things about masculinity, nostalgia, violence and nationhood. Whether he succeeds or not is moot; anyone sincerely interested in the modern British novel will want to read this to decide for themselves. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Toby Litt has taken us back into the secret and brutal lair of childhood... wickedly, wittily scary' Observer
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
When we looked upwards we saw beneath us a sky of rosebushes, gravel paths, equipment and thick, healthy, but slightly too-dry grass. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When we looked upwards we saw beneath us a sky of rosebushes, gravel paths, equipment and thick, healthy, but slightly too-dry grass. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Boys games of soldiers turn nasty, very nasty, after the death of one of Gang. Told in the voices of the 4 members, the narrative of Deadkidsongs rushes you through the retaliation taken out on the adults who Gang blame for the death. I had to read parts of the meningitis chapter twice just to take in the shock of what was happening to one of the story's 4 characters. Reading this on the train quite literally left me short of breath and palpatating! Toby Litt posesses an imagination that most of us can only race to keep us with. Absolutely brilliant stuff and the best, and most disturbing, read I've had in years. The end does make sense if you take time to figure it out...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I thought this book was completely gripping when I read it just after it came out. However looking over my bookcase recently I remembered that at the time I had found it deeply confusing towards the end and endeavoured to read it again assuming that may be the fact I was 17 first time round had been the source of my confusion! However, though like the first time I thought the main body of the text beautifully captured the violence and cruelty inherent in friendships at that age, I still think that Litt lets himself down by the somewhat bizarre conclusion, which I think will more annoy me for months than fascinate, all in all though a good book, for those who aren't easily annoyed!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
...But it does contain discrepancies.
That, I believe, is the point.
This is a very clever book indeed. I'm sure you know that it is about young boys and the violence that these "monsters" (it's OK, I can say that, I used to be one) get up to, either for real or in their minds.
Litt's character development is so convincing, that by about half way through, you are terrified what one particular boy may do every time he appears on the page.
But where this book is particularly clever is the way the writer confuses you with the narration. Who is narrating this bit? Isn't that slightly different from the way that was described over there? Who was narrating that bit anyway?
You'll keep thinking about the end and what really happened for months after finishing it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Should a novel be a brain-teaser?
If we are looking for easy entertainment, we do not necessarily want to be constantly puzzled by such questions as who exactly is telling us the story. Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2008 by David
Excellent page turner.
Rather like Lord of the Rings but set in 1970s suburban rural England, this is a very entertaining and thought-provoking read. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2007 by Lovetoread
Until the end
I thought this book was completely gripping when I read it just after it came out. However looking over my bookcase recently I remembered that at the time I had found it deeply... Read more
Published on 12 Aug 2004 by "pumpkint"
A mystery with no showdown
I could summarise what this book's all about with two statements:
(i) it's a tale of childhood, evoking memories of younger days when life was so much simpler and us kids were... Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2004 by dangermash
Bad Boys
Deadkidsongs is a very compelling book, transposing from the adventures of normal small town gang of young boys to a dark and frantic ending, almost... Read more
Published on 18 April 2004 by simon gurney
Powerful and unsettling
The reader is warned in the preamble that two of the chief protagonists will be dead by the conclusion, but this in no way spoils the tension in Litt's minor masterpiece. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2004 by Cartimand
Creepy...confusing...GENIUS!
I picked this book up in my school library and hardly put it down over the next week that I spent reading it. Read more
Published on 22 July 2003 by Jason Edwards
Deadkidsongs
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who remembers 'playing out' with your mates when younger. It is adventurous reading material, thirilling and exciting! Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2003 by "maryam_uk"
A clever and disturbing novel
The underlying plot of 'deadkidsongs' is relatively straightforward: four boys absorbed in a fantasy world of heroic battles with invading Russians, until one dies of meningitis,... Read more
Published on 28 May 2003
The ending... wow!
This is one hell of a book, filled with nostalgia and unnerving metaphoric content. As a male born and bred in the countryside this novel held particular poigniance, as it... Read more
Published on 24 April 2002
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