New Boy Synopsis
The bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Last Runaway returns with a tale of jealousy, bullying and revenge.
Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat's son Osei knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day - so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can't stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players - teachers and pupils alike - will never be the same again.
The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington schoolyard in Tracy Chevalier's powerful drama of friends torn apart.
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Tracy Chevalier Press Reviews
High school, with its crushes, insecurities and politics, works as the perfect backdrop to Shakespeare's original plot... New Boy, with its angsty teenagers, racial frictions and a magnificently fleshed out antagonist, is a tense and tight read... It can be read in a single afternoon and it really is a heady rollercoaster of emotions, right to the breathless and shocking last line -- Tanya Sweeney - Irish Independent
This is a compact and intense read full of twists, turns and intrigue. The fast-moving shifting allegiances and rivalries that dominate the playground provide a backdrop full of heightened emotion that cleverly reflects the atmosphere of the original play -- Mernie Gilmore - Daily Express
Chevalier is at her best when describing the tenderness of young love or conveying the inner thoughts of her protagonists ... Chevalier deftly and succinctly gives [her characters] all more of a backstory than Shakespeare ever allowed ... transposing this story to the playground makes absolute sense. It is of interest as an exercise in illustrating the universality of the original, and works equally well as a standalone piece which tells of a tightly wound, intimately imagined situation hurtling towards inevitable tragedy -- Kirsty McLuckie - Scotland on Sunday
What Chevalier has done is recast the play to illuminate the peculiar trials of our era... a fascinating exercise ... In Chevalier's handling, the insidious manipulations of Othello translate smoothly to the dynamics of a sixth-grade playground, with all its skinned-knee passions and hop-scotch rules ... How Chevalier renders Iago's scheme into the terms of a modern-day playground provides some wicked delight. She's immensely inventive about it all -- Ron Charles - Washington Post
Chevalier's modern interpretation of Othello deftly explores race relations in the schoolyard in 1970s suburban Washington, and captures how it feels to be an outsider -- Anita Sethi - i, 2017 Books of the Year
Othello as a Seventies schoolyard drama? Yes, it works marvellously. The emotions of emerging adolescence are a potent brew, with friendships, rivalries, budding sexuality, and the desire to fit in combining unflinchingly with the racism of the teachers (and some of the pupils). This is an evocative retelling of Shakespeare, and his characters' interactions and motivations fit surprisingly well into the brutal world of childhood -- Joanne Harris
Powerful and intriguing -- Deidre O'Brien - Sunday Mirror
To add urgency to an everyday story of high-school bullying, [Chevalier] compresses the action into the cycle of a school day. It's a clever strategy, executed with typical aplomb by the gifted author of Girl With a Pearl Earring... Her New Boy is an often inspired riff on adolescence and alienation -- Robert McCrum - The Observer
New Boy is in the tradition of movies such as 10 Things I Hate About You or West Side Story, or Toni Morrison's play Desdemona ... A deft examination of the accommodations a boy such as Osei must make wherever he goes ... Chevalier is delicate in her description of the emotional and mental cost of all this careful avoidance -- Ellah Wakatama Allfrey - The Guardian
Tracy Chevalier's powerful drama of friends torn apart by jealousy, bullying and betrayal will leave you reeling - MumsNet
'A compact and intense read full of twists, turns and intrigue' Daily Express
About Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier is the author of six previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn, Burning Bright and Remarkable Creatures. Born in Washington, DC, she moved to London in 1984, where she lives with her husband and son.
The film of Girl with a Pearl Earring, starring Colin Firth as Vermeer, was released in the UK in January. It was nominated for 10 BAFTAs and two Academy Awards.
Photograph © Eammon McCabe
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