The Wrong Child

"21 of 22 children in a rural village die in a disaster. By chance, the 'wrong' child, Dog Evans, lives. Crippled with survivor's guilt, his parents abandon Evans to a feral life at the margins. He is shunned by those left behind, for whom his presence is a daily insult, a reminder of unbearable loss. We learn what took place and its shocking consequences, both for Dog Evans and the wider community. Gornell's forensic gaze dissects the lives of the bereaved, fractured relationships and existences frozen the day their children died... Deborah Cutter, seperated from her husband John, numbs her pain with alcohol and sex. Local postman Nugget holds tight to the hope that the Evans house contains valuable secrets. Parish priest Father Wittin is an embarrassing irrelevance... As grief turns to rage, the villagers' insatiable desire for catharsis in the form of one final blood sacrifice becomes unstoppable. The master of 'rural noir', Barry Gornell has created a mesmerising, heart-breaking examination of rural life with a remarkable note of hope within the darkness. Praise for The Wrong Child: 'The Wrong Child is a startling and uncompromising story of grief and anger, of abandonment and decay. It’s intense - darker than dark - but also original and beautiful. Watch out for this Gornell fellow, folks, he is extremely good.' Helen Fitzgerald, author of Viral, Dead Lovely and The Cry"