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Summary
Summary
Can a boy on the edge find his way back? From award-winning Icelandic author Fridrik Erlings comes a novel as cruel as it is tender.
Henry has a clubfoot and he is the target of relentless bullying. One day, in a violent fit of anger, Henry lashes out at the only family he has -- his mother. Sent to live with other troubled boys at the Home of Lesser Brethren, an isolated farm perched in the craggy lava fields along the unforgiving Icelandic coast, Henry finds a precarious contentment among the cows. But it is the people, including the manic preacher who runs the home, who fuel Henry's frustration and sometimes rage as he yearns for a life and a home. Author Fridrik Erlings offers a young adult novel that explores cruelty and desperation, tenderness and remorse, but most importantly, kindness and friendship.
Author Notes
Fridrik Erlings is a novelist, screenwriter, graphic designer, and musician. He is the author of the Icelandic classic Benjamin Dove as well as Fish in the Sky . Boy on the Edge , he says, is a story "about an individual with a rich inner life but with severe limitations about expressing his feelings." Fridrik Erlings lives in Iceland.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Erlings (Fish in the Sky) delivers a moody, affecting character study of a troubled teenage boy. Henry "had never seen anyone as ugly as himself"; his odd appearance and clubfoot make him a target for bullies, and his stutter and difficulties with reading lead him to keep his emotions bottled up. When Henry takes his anger out on his mother, he is sent to a home for "troubled boys," a farm run by a minister and his wife, Emily, on the barren lava fields of the Icelandic coast. Emily's kindness and the solace Henry finds working with the farm's cattle help him begin to feel at home. Erlings poignantly describes Henry's longing for a friend and the pain of rejection. When the minister and Emily take in a delicate younger boy named Ollie Henry feels alone once again, but Ollie's efforts to reach out and his love for books and stories give Henry a chance to heal. Though Henry's story may be too quiet for some readers, it's a poetic and powerful novel. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In this Icelandic import we enter a world of spare, Bergman-esque intensity and darkness, with a landscape of lava rock and steep cliffs, that is unforgiving and steeped in stories of tragedy and entrapment. Two boys meet in a foster home located on a farm. Henry comes to the farm as the new cowherd. He's deeply anxious, borderline illiterate, awkward, lame, and heart-rendingly incapable of human connection. Ollie, a much younger boy, is an orphan and a kind of fey visionary. The foster father is a tortured, rigid, devil-obsessed pastor. His wife, Emily, is the one note of warmth, fun, and color in the whole situation. The tone of the narrative is anti-sentimental, and the two boys do not become friends quickly or easily, but when Ollie has a near-fatal accident Henry realizes the depth of his bond to him. A framing story lets us know what happened to the two boys in adult life: contrary to expectations, Ollie, capable of such joy as a child, becomes a lost soul, while Henry, with all his challenges, finds satisfaction and peace. This is a deeply engaging story for readers willing to go over the edge of the cliff into the dark. sarah ellis (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Clumsy, clubfooted Henry stutters and struggles to speak in every school he's ever attended, gradually filling with silent, burning rage until, one day, he loses control and breaks his mother's arm. From then on, he's sent to live at a farm for troubled boys on a sharp and rocky lava field near the sea cliffs. Almost instantly, he's soothed by a loving mother figure, Emily, and the herd of cows he tends to, though he still bubbles with feelings on the inside that can only trickle out in single words or short sentences. In contrast with his sparse outward expression, Henry's rich inner life is conveyed in lush, beautiful passages describing his deep longing for friendship, his anger and guilt about his mother, his frustration with Emily's dogmatic reverend husband, and his growing love for the harsh yet comforting Icelandic landscape surrounding the farm. Full of poetic renderings of the craggy terrain, Erlings (Benjamin Dove, 2007) offers a sophisticated, character-driven story that builds slowly as Henry learns gratifying truths about love and family.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Henry, clubfooted, virtually illiterate, and a stutterer, is an Icelandic teenager increasingly unable to control his rage. When he attacks his mother, he is sent to the Home of Lesser Brethren, a farm in the middle of a lava field on the coast of Iceland, run by Reverend Oswald, a religious fanatic, and his kindly wife, Emily. She teaches Henry how to milk and care for the cows, and they help him to find his role in this harsh place. He is desperate for a friend, and this loneliness leads him to make some poor judgments, but it also prompts him to write the letters that are the basis of the novel's narrative (although the novel is not epistolary). The prologue explains that Henry wrote these letters to a friend over a period of 20 years, which were never answered. Henry's death prompts the recipient to write Henry's story. Readers don't learn until the end who the "friend" is, and the disclosure will inspire readers to reread the prologue for hints. Although the novel's setting and theme are grim, the actual violence is minimal by today's over-the-top standards. Readers will be drawn into Henry's world. Engrossing and finely wrought.-Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
From an award-winning Icelandic author comes a parable of hope against a backdrop of unrelenting emotional hardship. Henry, an outcast with a clubfoot and a stutter, has lived with brutality his whole life. Shunted from school to school by a mother desperate to regain control over her own life, Henry's anger finally explodes in violence against her. The state sends him to a remote, coastal corner of Iceland to live with other troubled boys at the Home of Lesser Brethren. On a farm run by the neurotically zealous Rev. Oswald and his kind wife, Emily, he feels truly accepted only by the farm animals he tends. Still unable to build relationships with the people around him, his loneliness threatens to overcome him. He finds a kind of inner peace on the lava outcroppings that loom above the sea. With the help of a golden-haired little boy who finds his way into Henry's heart, he's finally able to overcome his reticence to communicate and to see that others also struggle with the fine line between good and evil. Erlings' poetic, graceful language is an overt tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupry's The Little Prince. A powerful, Christian-themed exploration of a journey to self-acceptance and hard-won friendship. (Fiction. 12 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
