Luke and Jon - Softcover

'What's enchanting about this novel is the cool and restrained language ... Williams's understated style and eye for small, intimate details keep the many heavy, dark moments in this novel from becoming melodramatic.' -- Irish Times >> 'Williams s restrained prose always keeps the story under tight control, never allowing it to descend into mawkishness. This is a hugely impressive debut.' -- Daily Telegraph >> 'Like many classic stories of childhood, Robert Williams Luke and Jon is told with an outsider s eye: cool and clear, and hiding deep emotion behind a carapace of coping. ... the language with which he recounts this tale of friendship and survival seems newly minted. The kind of book that reminds you why, as a child, you first started reading novels.' -- --Financial Times

Luke's mum is dead. He finds himself in a small, scruffy northern hill town, with a near silent father, who he fears might be trying to drink himself to death. Then he meets Jon. Jon is massively strange. He wears 1950s clothes, has a side-parting and a twitch. The kids at school call him 'Slackjaw'. When Luke discovers his secret, Jon changes his life in more ways than he can imagine. Luke and Jon is a coming of age novel about family, bereavement and how lives can change forever in a single second. Written with great power, warmth and humour, it signals a hugely engaging and original new voice. Compelling and emotionally acute, it is a unique debut.