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    Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4: Outcast
    Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4: Outcast
    Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4: Outcast
    Audiobook7 hours

    Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4: Outcast

    Written by Michelle Paver

    Narrated by Ian McKellen

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    “Fast-paced and exciting adventure that will enthrall every reader.” —Erin Hunter, author of the New York Times bestselling Warriors series

    Readers who love the Spirit Animals series will devour the fourth book in Michelle Paver’s bestselling fantasy series about friendship and survival.

    For two moons Torak has hidden a terrible secret—and now it is revealed. He bears the mark of the Soul-Eater, and must pay the price. Cast out from the clans, he is alone and on the run: cut off from his best friend, Renn, and his beloved pack-brother, Wolf.

    He flees to the haunted reed-beds of Lake Axehead, where he is hunted by the Otter Clan, taunted by the Hidden People, and, as soul-sickness claims him, he falls prey to an even greater menace. Tormented by secrets and broken trust, he uncovers a deception that will turn his world upside down

     “Highly entertaining.” —New York Times Book Review

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKatherine Tegen Books
    Release dateMay 20, 2008
    ISBN9780061575495
    Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4: Outcast
    Author

    Michelle Paver

    Michelle Paver was born in central Africa, but moved to England as a child. After earning a degree in biochemistry from Oxford University, she became a partner in a London law firm, but eventually gave that up to write full-time. Chronicles of Ancient Darkness arises from her lifelong passions for animals, anthropology, and the distant past. It was also inspired by her travels in Norway, Lapland, Iceland, and the Carpathian Mountains—and particularly by an encounter with a large bear in a remote valley in Southern California.

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    Reviews for Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #4

    4/5

    196 ratings49 reviews

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    • 5/5
      An unexpected gift.I loved this novel, the story of a haunted boy who is forgotten by his own father. He abandons the fight to remain socially acceptable until one of his friends from his infancy comes to his rescue. And unknowingly, of her own.I'll be following this author.
    • 5/5
      Did you ever want to grab a character from the pages of a book and hug him? I dare you not to want to embrace Lewis and tell him he's loved. The characters within this debut novel are so three dimensional that you feel for them, know them, and want to sit them down and straighten them out. A book I couldn't put down, but wanted to slowly read to enjoy every word. One of the best books I've picked up in a while. A wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series continues with another action-packed installment. Torak has been branded as a Soul Eater by the evil Viper Mage and according to clan law he is cast out. Any person who sees him must kill him and he's not to get help from anyone. Torak, soul-sick and confused, journeys to the Lake where the Otter Clan lives and there he discovers the source of his illness- Seshru the Viper Mage. He knows he'll have to defeat her to save his own life and protect the lives of the people in the forest, but can he manage it on his own? Once again, I was drawn in to Paver's rich descriptions of the land and Torak's quest for survival. You'll definitely want to read the other books first and I wish I had reread them because the action picks up right from where the third book left off. I love this series and I wasn't disappointed. I couldn't put it down!
    • 4/5
      I finished The Outcast by Sadie Jones, shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008. It is a very good book, a very perceptive study of a boy rejected by one self centered member of his village after another, ganged up on by bullies thinking everything that is wrong in life is his fault, and being assured that that is true. His counterpart is a young girl from a wealthy family but with the same familial, though not societal rejection. The results of evil are demonstrated but not the cause. Why should Lewis's father reject him from the age of 7 onward, did war deaden his feelings or does the man have none? Why does Dicky Carmichael abuse only part of his family, and why does the family condone it? Why do people get so much more enjoyment from expressing hatred and conformity than love, individuality and humanity? Is it original sin? Can only religion answer these questions? Not in this book, religion comes off as equally self absorbed with the rest of the village. Sadie Jones doesn't discuss cause just effects. She does that well, but it's a mighty oppressive book.
    • 5/5
      This book is all about Torak and how he tries to survive after he becomes an outcast. He has a tattoo of the soul eaters on his chest, and he finds out that his mother declared him clan-less. He leaves the other clans and is some hunted by Aki, the son of the Boar Clan leader. Torak starts to turn bad. He cant remember how to hunt, track, and cant remember some animals. Torak gets mad at Wolf and Wolf finds a new back. Renn finds Torak and helps him get the tattoo out. Torak starts to get better and Wolf is now friends with him again. Then the Viper Mage gets him, and uses him to attack Renn and Bale. He fights back and gets away. Torak finds Renn and Bale and takes them to safety,but the Viper Mage finds them. Viper Mage tells Torak that Renn is her daughter. Torak then leaves Renn and finds out that a flood is coming. He tells the clans and they take him back. I think this book had a lot of less action. There was much more talking, but a lot of learning about people. It was very interesting to see what Torak was thinking about and how he was changing. I like that Bale was back because he makes the book a little more interesting. It was cool to see all the clans and learn about them at the meeting. The Otter people where very interesting because they are so weird. There was a lot to take in about all the people in the book.
    • 5/5
      For me this was a very powerful story. It’s fundamentally about a boy who at age 10 suffers the unbearable guilt of seeing his mother drown and not being able to save her, and then has to live with a father who can’t or won’t show him the love he needs to overcome his guilt. It’s also a wider story about bad parenting (mostly fathering) and domestic violence in upper class post-war Britain. It's also a story about how the justice system does nothing to really address the cause of crimes committed by a mentally disturbed young man. There were lots of times when I just had to put the book down, unable to bear the pain I felt for the main character, Lewis, but I was always drawn back in desperately hoping that Sadie Jones would provide Lewis with the believable and satisfying redemption that I hope can exist.
    • 4/5
      Sadie Jones’ debut novel is set in England in the years immediately following WWII. Lewis Aldridge lives with his mother Elizabeth and father Gilbert in a semi-rural commuter town outside of London. Gilbert served in the war and is the stiff-upper-lip type who keeps his feelings to himself. He is also strict and straitlaced (though a reluctant disciplinarian) and presides over a household to some extent held hostage to his moods. Free-spirited Elizabeth drinks. Tragedy strikes when Lewis is ten: he loses his mother in a drowning accident, an event to which he is the sole witness. Gilbert and Lewis are both devastated but exist in isolated emotional spheres and are so bottled up they are unable to provide any comfort to one another. In an effort to repair the damage, Gilbert quickly remarries and introduces young, needy, attention-seeking Alice to his son only a few months after Elizabeth’s death. With no outlet for his guilt and remorse, Lewis’s fragile emotional state festers; confused by resentment and anger that he can neither escape nor express, he finds solace in alcohol, self-mutilation and episodes of destructive rage. The novel’s most wrenching scenes take place in 1957, after Lewis returns home from a spell in prison for setting fire to the local church. Lewis and Gilbert strike a truce of sorts. Lewis promises to behave, and Gilbert gets him a menial position working for the company where he has built his career, which is owned by the odious Dicky Carmichael, a neighbour, whose two daughters, sultry Tamsin and gangly Kit, are childhood friends of Lewis. But Lewis, still lacking an outlet for feelings that he doesn’t understand, is ostracized by much of the community and gives in to wilfulness and destructive urges that won’t let him alone. The tone of the narration is controlled, the prose reminiscent of William Trevor at his most tersely lyrical. Sadie Jones has written a psychologically blistering novel that generates great suspense, presenting Lewis as the victim of the emotional failings of the weak and immature adults charged with his care and something of a ticking time-bomb. Though largely driven by tragedy and violence, the story concludes on an emotionally satisfying, hopeful note. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize and winner of the Costa Book Awards prize for first novel, The Outcast is a sophisticated and thoroughly convincing work of fiction that never lets the reader down.
    • 5/5
      This is a tricky situation for Torak, but Renn still believes in him. The most challenging of the series as it introduces concepts of relationships, love, right and wrong and decision making.
    • 4/5
      The Outcast is a riveting story taking place in 1950's England. A mother dies and her son struggles with his grief and guilt. This is an amazing first novel from Ms Jones I look forward to more from this gifted young novelist.
    • 5/5
      The best book I've ever read, besides Fall on your knees and Før du sovner. I am so in love with the boy in this book. You are taken in to his head and you're able to read all his thought through Jones' words. His loneliness is mine, his pain is mine, his love is mine, his confusion is mine, his happiness is mine. I Love every well spoken, well written word in this book. I live in it still, it's haunting me still, tempting me, loving me, sees me still. I carry it everywhere I go. I read parts of it over and over again. Every time I open it, it rips out my soul, and it seems I like it.Need to quote my favourite paragraph:"I see you. You think you're dark, and there's all this darkness around you, but when I look at you ... you're like a shining thing. You're light. You just are. You always were." (Kit says this to Lewis)
    • 5/5
      I got so caught up in [The Outcast] that I stayed up until 3:30 last night finishing it. That says something for the power of the book--even though, in terms of content, it is probably the most depressing book I've ever read. The novel starts in 1957, as Lewis has just been released from prison and returns home. We flash back to 1945, with seven-year old Lewis and his mother taking the train to London to meet his father, who has long been away in the war. Dad turns out to be . . . well, not exactly an affectionate father; and things go from bad to worse a few years later when Lewis's mother dies. (No spoilers or details, I promise!) Different sections of the novel cover pivotal events in the years in between and in the weeks following Lewis's return. There's only a sliver of happiness in the ending, so if you're looking for a light summer read, don't pick up this one. My main criticism is that it is a bit hard to believe that so many characters could be so cruel and downright abusive with no one seeming to notice or care and everyone blaming a ten-year old boy for his own misery. I know that the setting was 1945-57, but even then people might question some of the things that happen to Lewis. No one seems to figure out that his quietness has something to do with the fact that he witnessed his mother's death or that he's angry that his father remarries only five months later? Still, the author's ability to evoke a visceral response in her reader is the novel's strength. She made me physically experience the sadness and anxiety and hopelessness that Lewis must have experienced.
    • 1/5
      A game of two halves. First half really good. Then the second part is a real stinker. Suddenly you think how could Lewis emerge after 2 years in prison without really having been changed by it? And then the awful sex scenes.
    • 4/5
      This is Sadie Jones's debut novel and I came to it after reading her other books and enjoying them enormously. Set in the stifling world of an English village in the 1950s, the story follows Lewis Aldridge from when he first encounters his father after the war and his troubled life after the death of his mother. Being motherless and then having a young stepmother unprepared to deal with a grieving boy, sets him apart from the rest of his peers and his increasingly destructive behavior get him sent to prison for a few years, but it's his unwelcome return that sets in motion events that change the accepted order of the village. Jones knows what she's doing, and even her first novel feels self-assured. Her characters are fully developed and the story is well-plotted. It's a melodramatic tale, full of the intense and immediate feelings of adolescence and young adulthood.
    • 5/5
      Exciting historical action involving some nice ideas about prehistoric religious ideas. Again Ian McKellen reads the story in a way that draws you into the plot and characters.
    • 5/5
      This series has me completely hooked and I was no less entranced by this most recent offering.As the title suggests the central storyline involves Torak being cast out by the clans and his quest to clear his name. Renn, Bale and faithful Wolf come to his aid even as his behaviour turns bizarre and the risk to themselves increases. Compared with the previous novels this has less nerve-wracking adventure but the emotional content is hard-hitting and has been carefully built up through the previous work. The novel seems to me to be about the isolation of the beginning of puberty and what it means to be family. These are not new themes or new rites of passage but they are well researched, passionately written in an engaging world.
    • 2/5
      Despite being set in the 1950s, this book has a number of modern-day themes including self-harming, alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse and family relationships. At the age of ten Lewis watches his beloved mother drown. From that moment on he is made to feel unwanted and unloved and this has far-reaching consequences in the years to follow. This is a rather dark and depressing book, despite its corny ending, with detailed descriptions of violence and of self-cutting. Whilst I felt sorry for Lewis there were many times when I thought he deserved how he was treated. Because of this, I never really connected with him. In fact, there weren't any characters I actually liked. A disappointing read.
    • 3/5
      The outcast of the title is a young man who returns home to his small, smug English village after serving two years in prison for arson. Poor Lewis Aldridge watches his mother drown when he is 10, and then lives under his father's silent blame and near-hatred. As he enters his teens, he starts cutting himself, drinking, and acting out violently. Nothing much changes when he is released from prison, and his only solace comes from his relationship with two girls next door, one of whom is routinely abused by her father.Nice, right? This book was very readable, but so dark and depressing that even I started disliking it, and I usually love dark and depressing. The somewhat hopeful ending redeemed it a little, so I won't say I disliked the book in its entirety. One of the blurbs evoked Atonement. It's an easy comparison because of the setting, but while Atonement is complex and breathtakingly realistic in depicting the psychology of its characters, The Outcast is a little too pat and by-the-numbers. Still, a bleakly interesting read.
    • 4/5
      Sadie Jone's debut novel - The Outcast - is a disturbing and provocative story about loss, adolescent struggle for understanding, familial relationships and secrets, and finally redemption.When ten year old Lewis Aldridge loses his mother to a tragic accident, he finds himself on the outside of his father's love and understanding. Wrapping himself in a cloak of silence, and converting his grief to anger, Lewis detaches himself from his friends and family. Eventually, Lewis' anger boils over and he lashes out at not only himself, but a community which has turned against him. The novel actually begins with Lewis' release from prison after serving two years for his crime, then rewinds to his childhood to show the reader Lewis' relationship with his mother, the carefree Lizzie; and his cold and distant father, Gilbert. After Lizzie's death, Lewis' father remarries the younger Alice - a woman whose floundering self-esteem and desire to be "liked" results in further alienation of her stepson. The community where Lewis grows up is filled with damaged characters - all who believe primarily in "appearances," while harboring dark secrets. The Carmichael family (with the violent Dicky, and his two daughters and ineffective wife) parallel the lives of the Aldridges.Jones deliberately sets down the story of Lewis' early years, casting the narrative in an all seeing omniscient voice which gives the reader a sense of impending doom. By the time the reader has caught up to the present with Lewis returning home after his imprisonment, the story has taken on a pace of its own. The layers of Lewis' psyche begin to unfold, and the closely held secrets of the characters are exposed.Jones weaves her story with the careful precision of architect The characters - who are not terribly likable - demand to be read. The cruelty heaped upon Lewis seems interminable. And there were moments when I wanted to scream at his uncaring father and insipid stepmother. The intertwined lives of all the characters seem too broken and damaged to be mended, but Jones ultimately leaves the reader with the hope of understanding and redemption.The result of all of this is an emotionally driven and powerful novel which is compulsively readable. I can recommend this debut by Sadie Jones for readers who enjoy a character driven novel which explores the deeper meaning behind what it means to be human.Rated 3.5.
    • 5/5
      Elizabeth and Gilbert Aldridge are an ill-matched couple but very much in love when he returns to her and their son Lewis after WWII. Elizabeth is a free spirit who clearly sees the pettiness of Dicky Carmichael, Gilbert's boss; Gilbert also knows Dicky for what he is, but his conventional ambition leads him to suppress judgment. Then, when Lewis is ten, Elizabeth drowns, with Lewis as the only witness, a little boy too small to save her. Suddenly Lewis is alone. His father withdraws from him and remarries a woman too young and too wrapped up in Gilbert to offer any help to Lewis at all.
      The book opens with Lewis at nineteen coming back home from a four year prison sentence to Gilbert and Alice who don't want him and can't not take him. Meanwhile, Dicky's daughters have grown up: Tamsin, lovely and shallow; and Kit, less obviously beautiful, but still in love with Lewis.
      The rest of the story shows Lewis - both before and after his time in prison - trying to connect with the world. It seems as though his assessment of reality is correct: "It looked like everybody was in a broken, bad world that fitted them just right." That is not the end of the story though, and the book ends with Lewis looking forward in hope.
      The Outcast is beautifully written in straightforward, understated prose. Flashbacks are skillfully done, and the whole thing moves forward to its bittersweet conclusion.
    • 4/5
      When The Outcast opens it’s 1957 and 19 year old Lewis Aldridge has just been released from two years in prison. He is returning home, the outskirts of London, to his father and stepmother, neither of whom wants him. The rest of the book is the haunting story of Lewis’ life, before and after this point, as the author weaves the story by moving back and forth in time, developing a narrative with tension and suspense that had me holding my breath and furiously turning pages.Lewis’ story is one of repression and loneliness. As a ten-year-old, he watches helplessly as his mother drowns in a river close to their home and without her to anchor him, he is lost. His father, Gilbert, marries a much younger woman, only a few short months later. Lewis struggles to fit in and control his anger, but he is a child in need of extensive counseling, and none is offered him.In the meantime, his father’s influential boss, Dicky Carmichael, is revealed as an abusive bully who is systematically beating his younger daughter, Kit. Lewis and Kit are unwitting partners in trying to escape their individual nightmare existences. And Lewis’ stepmother, Alice, has turned into a public drunk who is making sexual advances on him. It’s hard for a guy to keep his head up under these circumstances. Lewis does try, but the cards are stacked against him. My heart went out to him. Sadie Jones paints such a sympathetic character, flaws and all that I found myself wanting desperately for him to succeed. In the end, we’re left with hope, Lewis is left with hope. He has a future that could never have been predicted early on in the narrative. Sadie Jones produced a knock-out debut novel. Her spare prose, told with unnerving realism make for a riveting read that reveals the strait-laced life of the fifties wasn’t all it appeared to be. Very highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      This is a good book, but not a great one - and I was hoping for a great one. Jones is a talented writer, and I found myself going back to reread some of her lovely phrases. But every character here is ridiculously dysfunctional, and many times I felt I had already heard this story (misunderstood, struggling, brooding young man) - and I did not believe the budding romance that comes near the end of the story. I don't feel I wasted my time reading this book, but I would not keep it in my library.
    • 5/5
      Lewis Aldridge was an outcast – shunned by his father who reminded him too much of his deceased wife, bewildered by his young stepmother and largely ignored by his peers in his home village. Alone and hurt, Lewis became a man torn between the hatred he felt for being cast out and the desperation to feel accepted. In her debut novel, The Outcast, Sadie Jones exposed parts of Lewis’s soul who were hard to read about, but like a bad car accident, you keep looking, hoping to learn more.Lewis will be a character that I won’t soon forget. Most of the time, he was a character worthy of sympathy – a terrible victim of cirumstance that was acting out against society. Then, Lewis would show uglier colors and deeper flaws. He did unforgiveable things. And his bad reputation made him the target for any accusation – from rape to theft – whether he committed the crimes or not.As I finished The Outcast, I realized that Lewis was not the only “outcast” in this book. His parents were sad and lost too. His friends’ parents, the Carmichaels, were unscrupable. When Lewis made this realization, he felt even more broken. The only good in the world, for him, was 15-year-old Kit Carmichael, who was the constant recipient of her father’s physical abuse. He was determined to help her, despite the personal costs.It’s hard to say one could “enjoy” this book. The characters, though real, were tragic. Their destinies did not seem optimistic. But the ending left you with a glimmer of hope that the strength of the human spirit could endure all.
    • 4/5
      A very quick read and good character study about a boy who loses his mother and is treated very poorly after (different parenting beliefs in the 40's/50's and old school society etiquette) Lewis hates himself for many reasons and struggles with depression, self mutilation and eventually winds up in jail for arson. He fights and fights against his father and society but in the end, we hope, finds a way out. I liked this book, good clear prose.
    • 4/5
      A compelling read which I thought was going to get an unheard of five stars, but by the end I was feeling overwhelmed by the hero's suffering and looking for more in the way of redemption . The hero is complex and well-drawn, but other characters offer little in the way of light and shade. Still a cracking read.
    • 5/5
      a really good book. Michelle paver's books just catches you
    • 4/5
      This debut novel opens in 1957 London, as Lewis Aldridge, a 19 year old from the northern suburb of Waterford, is released from prison after serving a two year sentence. No one comes to greet him, and with no practical skills and nowhere to go, he chooses to return to the small town that has been distrustful of him since his mother's disappearance a decade earlier. Secrets abound in Waterford, where social appearances are far more important than genuine love and respect, and Lewis' reputation as a pariah and his continued troubles at home and in the community cause him to become progressively unrattled.Lewis is befriended by Kit Carmichael, a younger girl who has always admired him. However, her father is Lewis' father's employer, a respected but abusive man who despises Lewis and threatens Kit and his older daughter, Tamsin, to avoid the wayward boy. As tensions build, Kit becomes the only person who can communicate with Lewis, whose own father adds to his increasingly unstable behavior.The Outcast was a brilliant page turner for the first 2/3 of the book, with its realistic though disturbing portrayal of the lives and secrets in a small town community in postwar England, and the characters of Lewis, Kit and others were compelling. Unfortunately, the last 1/3 of the novel doesn't meet the same standard of excellence. However, this was still a very good novel, and one that I would strongly recommend.
    • 2/5
      This book is probably my least favorite of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness books so far. It felt like Paver tried to cram a whole lot of action into a small space, and as a result, it lacked depth and was a little confusing in sections (it was difficult to tell who was where in each scene sometimes). And some of the interactions were oversimplified almost to the point of being cringe-inducing. The closing scene in particular seemed more like the ending of a sitcom than the ending of a novel.

      In my review of Soul Eater, I said that I hoped the series would turn into a coming-of-age story. Well, based on the last few chapters of Outcast, it looks like I might get my wish. That's a consolation, at least. I think it would have been a pity if Paver had missed out on the chance to let Torak and Renn grow up.

      Two more books to go, and I'm done with this series. I'm still enjoying the story (especially the sections from Wolf's point of view) and looking forward to seeing where Paver takes it, but I think I'll be somewhat relieved when it's done.
    • 4/5
      A very good story but very grim indeed. The main character Lewis is a young boy who loses his affectionate mother when she drowns while they are out swimming. His father is very stuffy and cold and the boy withdraws into himself. He feels isolated and becomes known to the town as the "difficult" boy and no one cuts him any slack at all. The novel begins with a Prologue where Lewis is age 19 and returning home from two years of prison. It's a book that is tough to read because you can tell Lewis is a really sweet kid who is just crying out for affection, only to be rebuffed time and again. Well worth the read.
    • 4/5
      After two not-so-great reads, The Outcast was exactly what I needed to get over my reading slump. While definitely not a cheery book, The Outcast is emotionally moving, physically shocking, and beautifully written.Sadie Jones' debut novel tells the story of Lewis Aldridge, a nineteen-year-old boy who in 1957 has just been released from a two-year prison sentence. As Lewis returns home to the small English suburb of Waterford, Jones flashes back to Lewis' childhood and relates the events leading up to his imprisonment. At the age of ten, Lewis experiences a tragedy that changes the course of his life. The next seven years are a downward spiral of violence, self-mutilation, and extreme loneliness. At seventeen, he finally commits an act that sends him to prison - much to the delight of the inhabitants of his town, who always believed that Lewis was "no good."The Outcast also centres around Kit Carmichael, a girl who has loved Lewis her entire life. When he finally returns from prison, Lewis encounters Kit again and again. As Lewis attempts to return to a normal life, Kit is the only one who believes in him - who believes that he is good. As tensions mount in Waterford, Lewis and Kit hope for redemption, hope for freedom, and hope for a better life.Jones is a talented author whose style appeals to me. Her prose slips from descriptive to obscure, and the reader is left to make his or her own connections between events. Lewis and Kit have complex, intense emotions, and I often found myself mirroring those emotions. The supporting cast - Lewis' family and Kit's family - are all well-drawn additions to the plot. No character or event seems extraneous, and the ending, while not cut-and-dry, is a satisfying conclusion to the novel.Though not an overly optimistic novel, The Outcast does offer the reader a sense of hope. Jones expresses the idea that we all have our own set of personal tragedies, and while Lewis' are certainly harsher than most, as human beings we push on through the bad. We seek some form of atonement for our mistakes, we hope for an upturn in our fates, and we continue to live. Lewis and Kit do just this - though times are often bad, they continue to hope, to love, to live.The Outcast is a fantastic first novel, and I look forward to future works by Sadie Jones.
    • 5/5
      This book packs a wallop and is definitely not for those who like soft, rosy stories.It is a book that will haunt me for awhile...a long while.As stated in the opening chapter, two people went into the woods for a picnic and only one returned!When young Lewis witnesses the drowning of his mother, his life spins way out of control while his father and the upper crust social strata of 1940-1950's England encourages and foments denial.When his father rapidly marries and Lewis' feelings are pushed further and further underground, he acts out in ways that harm himself and those around him.This is a graphic novel -- not in the sense of cartoon like pictures -- but in the reality of stark images written at the hand of a very adept and powerfully skilled author.Struggling to write a review about the awesome power of this book, I'll simply say it is a very compelling look at the phoniness of society. It is an incredible story of a young man struggling to find meaning in a very crazy environment.While those around him are quite comfortable in their accouterments, lavish lifestyles, dinner parties and social status, their out-of- reality behaviors literally drive Lewis crazy!While the adults emotionally and physically abuse their children behind closed doors, they quite comfortably drive their Rolls Royce cars out into the guilded land of la la land.Highly recommended!