vwo 4 - week 37 2019 - Literature - The Outcast

Stiff Upper Lip

What made good queen Bess

Such a great success?

What made Wellington

Do what he did at Waterloo?

What makes every Englishman

A fighter through and through?

It isn't roast beef, or ale, or home, or mother

It`s just a little thing they sing to one another

Stiff upper lip, stout fella

Carry on, old fluff

Chin up, keep muddling through

https:

The Outcast - Sadie Jones 

Review:

A mesmerizing portrait of 1950s hypocrisy and unexpected love, from a powerful new voice the story of a boy who refuses to accept the polite lies of a tightly knit community that rejects love in favor of appearances. 

Written with nail-biting suspense and cinematic pacing, The  Outcast is an emotionally powerful evocation of postwar provincial English society and a remarkably uplifting testament to the redemptive powers of love and understanding.

The Outcast - Sadie Jones 

It is 1957, and Lewis Aldridge, straight out of prison, is journeying back to his home in Waterford, a suburban town outside London. He is nineteen years old, and his return will have dramatic consequences not just for his family, but for the whole community. 

A decade earlier, his father's homecoming has a very different effect. The war is over and Gilbert has been demobilized. He reverts easily to suburban life—cocktails at six-thirty, church on Sundays—but his wife and young son resist the stuffy routine. Lewis and his mother escape to the woods for picnics, just as they did in wartime days. Nobody is surprised that Gilbert's wife counters convention, but they are all shocked when, after one of their jaunts, Lewis comes back without her. 

Not far away, Kit Carmichael keeps watch. She has always understood more than most, not least from what she is dealt by her own father's hand. Lewis's grief and burgeoning rage are all too plain, and Kit makes a private vow to help. But in her attempts to set them both free, she fails to foresee the painful and horrifying secrets that must first be forced into the open. 

https: