Shy
A Novel
One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023
In a dilapidated mansion, in the middle of the night, a young man is considering what could be his final decision in this world.
The rucksack is shockingly heavy.
The floorboards complain.
He checks again, the spliff is diagonal-snug in the empty Embassy box.
The daytime check is a half-dream away.
The room is molten soft. Tempting.
Jumpy.
The rucksack is shockingly heavy.
It’s 3:13 a.m.
Shy. A troubled teen, a "dangerous young man," a reject from the social structures that no longer wish to nurture him. Shy knows that society has not failed him, he has failed it—parents, schooling, friends and sometime girlfriends. Judged and found wanting, he now lives at Last Chance, a boarding school for boys like…
MAX PORTER is the author of The Death of Francis Bacon, Lanny, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. He is the recipient of the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award.
