Best Debut Novel
What is The Outcast about?

The Outcast is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence – as he grows up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It is an everyday tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story.

What inspired you to write it?

The idea of a boy coming out of prison and trying to fit into a community that is itself corrupt was the first thing that came to me. I wanted to write an Oedipal story, with iconic characters, about what the nature of what it is to belong, and injustice. I set it in the fifties because I have always been very attracted to the books and films of that time.

Who are your literary influences?

It’s difficult to think in terms of being influenced, because when you write you try to find your own voice and forget those of other writers, but I must in some way be a product of books I’ve loved. My favourite writers are Hemingway, Capote, Salinger, McEwan and Dostoyevsky.

If you could recommend just one "must-read book" to anyone, what would it be and why?

It would be The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky, because it is a book that tells a riveting story and is profoundly insightful about human nature. Dostoyevsky has an undeserved reputation of being sort of turgid, but nothing could be further from the truth of this book. He relishes the events he discloses and has no prissiness – he gets in the mud with his characters.

What top tips do you have for anyone looking to write their first book?

It’s very hard; I only know what works for me, which is planning, structure and hard work. I have found that whenever I write thinking I’ll sort some lingering doubt out later, I generally run into trouble. If you can’t answer every single question about your story, then people will be able to tell. Also, try not to get too tied up in whether or not it’s any good, or what will happen to it when it’s finished – all of that can be paralysing.
Sadie Jones was born in London. She grew up in a creative environment: her father is the Jamaican poet and screenwriter Evan Jones, and her mother was an actress. As her friends took up their various university places, Sadie worked in a variety of jobs. After travelling, she settled in London and spent several years as a screenwriter, before writing her first novel, The Outcast. Sadie is married and has two children.

Customer Rating:
Summary: an examination of pain
Comment: I read this book in 1.5 days much to my wife's irritation since I was supposed to be helping look after the children while on holiday! Other reviewers have referred to the clautrophobia of the 1950s which I would entirely concur with, there is a fawning sense of hierarchy and keeping up appearances regardless of underlying realities.
A great novel dealing with hypocrisy, failed communication between father and son, failure of articulation of great distress and possible resolution.
I strongly recommend reading it.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: a bit disappointing
Comment: I really wanted to like this after all the hype but to be honest I found it a bit boring and melodramatic. The central idea was good but I never really got inside Lewis's head and towards the end the fact that every female character in the book found him irresistible got a bit silly. The final scenes in the church and at the railway station beggared my belief, you could see the book was written with a movie deal in mind. I found myself skipping large chunks and was a bit bored.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Sublime
Comment: A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of fiction. This is the book I wished I had written and the friends to whom I've lent my copy say the same. I sincerely hope that this isn't the one and only book Sadie Jones has in her, but what a read The Outcast is; fan-blooming-tastic!

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as good as its reputation
Comment: I can sort of see why a lot of people like this. All the ingrediants are there, but Sadie Jones is no Delia when it comes to getting the right result. A good story is ruined by too many viewpoints that switch without reason (sometimes mid-paragraph) leaving you to wonder who's the real main character. It's meant to be Lewis, but we see the action from at least 7 other characters that it all gets a bit jumbled and lost. Where was Ms Jones' editor? Asleep, I guess. And the prose - far from being elegant and beautiful as some reviewers would have you believe, it's childish and uninspiring. How did this get onto the Orange shortlist? I'm only glad Rose Tremain won.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: mixed reaction
Comment: I have nearly finished reading this book, but in truth I am struggling with it. At first it seemed to have a very compelling beat, heightened by the simple and direct dialogue. But 300 pages later that simple dialogue seems to have palled, and dropped to a more 'Janet and John' learning-to-read level. If I hadn't got this far through, I would cut my losses and give up.

Also the story does seem to go round in somewhat repetitive circles, and I think would have been better for being 100 pages shorter.

On the plus side, I think it is an interesting story - a voyage with a dysfunctional family in an uptight society, where what happens under the surface must be covered up for the sake of appearances and emotional expression is constipated. I just wish the author would write more sophisticated prose.

---