The Innocent of Falkland Road
The Innocent of Falkland Road
by Carlo Gébler
A masterful coming-of-age set in 1960s London.
C Format, Paperback | 300pp | ISBN: 9781848406308 | Release Date: September 2017
London, Summer, 1964. The Beatles have just released A Hard Days Night and the swinging sixties are fast approaching. Ralph, twelve years old, waves his mother goodbye as she disappears to the U.S. to work for a year, leaving him in the care of Doreen, an Irish housekeeper, and her husband Tom, a labourer. It is never easy being stuck inside the pill-box of the skull and looking out, particularly when the world is in flux, when it is peopled by chancers and crooks, swingers and adulterers, unreliable friends and – very occasionally – even good people, and when the grown-ups around you play strange games that involve fighting as much as loving each other. Yet Ralph is nothing if not curious, as well as cunning if necessary: he hangs on and gradually, slowly, begins to understand the world as it really is, an experience that frightens, enlightens and surprises him. A masterful novel by one of Ireland’s finest writers.
Reviews
“Suffused with loving recreations of the era and of the mundane nature of daily life in its London suburb...the book transcends these details through its absorbing insights into the frailties and foibles of its principal characters. Ralph himself is a character to cherish, but everyone is given their due in this warm-hearted coming-of-age novel.”
“Gébler lyrically charts young boy’s journey from innocence to maturity...the writing is so authentic in this novel, that one hopes for a sequel.”
“Heart-warming...a subtle portrait of the first glimmers of sexuality on the threshold of adolescence.”
“A deeply affecting depiction of the uncertainties of childhood and the end of innocence.”
“The texture of London life in the mid-sixties is wonderfully evoked as the backdrop for this beautiful coming-of-age tale. In his spare, tender evocation of a year in Ralph’s life, Carlo Gébler depicts that delicate moment between childhood and the end of innocence.”
