The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean

Extraordinary first adult novel from prizewinning author of Skellig, David Almond

The extraordinary first adult novel from prizewinning author of Skellig, David Almond

Billy Dean is the child of an illicit relationship between a priest and a young hairdresser. He is born on the very day that terrorists attack his town, and the fact that he survives and flourishes persuades his father that he is a special child with special gifts. Even so, Billy’s birth can’t be made public, and he spends his childhood in a single room, dreaming of other worlds, occasionally visited at night by his father. When the visits come to a sudden end, his mother decides it’s time for Billy to come out into the world, helped by a couple of friendly townspeople, and soon he finds that his supposed gifts bring him a certain celebrity. But his father hasn’t gone for good, and there’s a terrible reckoning still to be made. David Almond’s first adult novel is a brilliant account of a child long kept hidden from the world who finally finds that he can establish his place in it - only to be confronted with a past that won’t go away.