If fall puts you in the mood for haunting stories of old graveyards and ghosts, with perhaps the power of love to transcend death if only for a snatch of time, do try The Hideaway, by Pam Smy! You'll be rewarded not just with atmospheric spookiness, but with a chance to weep in public (or now that you have been warned, in private) over a sharply drawn portrait of a more ordinary sadness--this is also a story of domestic abuse. It's told in two points of view, that of a boy, Billy, on the run from a home made toxic by his mother's abusive boyfriend, Jeff, and Billy's mother, searching for him with the help of neighbors and the authorities.
Billy can no longer stand being helpless in the same house as Jeff any longer. To the familiar soundtrack of invective being spewed at his mother, with the threat of violence always present, Billy gathers together clothes and provisions (and all the sharp kitchen knives) and leaves. Following a route he's taken in his mind a thousand times, he heads through the autumn rain for the shelter he's found for himself--an abandoned military pill box in an old cemetery. Cold and wet, he curls himself up.
The next morning he finds he's not an alone; an old man is pottering around the grave stones. The man, recognizing Billy as the desperate runaway he is, strikes a deal with him--if Billy will help cleaning up the overgrown graves, the man will give him a few days grace before alerting the authorities.
Meanwhile, when his mother realizes Billy has missed school, and isn't quietly up alone in his room as usual, she takes action, regardless of the consequences. She finds help and support in the neighbors from whom she'd previously been isolated, and a search begins.
So does a chance for Billy's mum to break free from her trap, and a chance for Billy to start healing from the trauma. And the story moves towards a heartbreaking ending when the purpose of the old man's graveyard cleaning becomes clear on All Souls day, and the dead are reunited with each other, and with the living (this is the part where I cried).
The story wraps up tidily with Jeff's arrest, and the old man's story is tied into that of Billy's family, so there's considerable hope that things will go better now (although one worries of course that Jeff, out of prison, will come back with murder in his heart...).
But in any event, slightly too tidy ending aside, it is an emotional journey of a book that I loved! So many feels. It's being marketed as middle grade, for kids 10-13 ish (Billy's age), and though I wouldn't give it to a kid any younger than that, I can easily imagine older readers clicking with it.
The Hideaway is illustrated by the author throughout with black and white drawings, with double-page spreads at the climax of the story. Pam Smy is a whiz with tonal and texture. The images are melancholy, spooky, sharp with anxiety, fading into more peaceful mist.
Pam Smy studied Illustration at Cambridge School of Art, where she now lectures part-time. Pam has illustrated books by Conan Doyle, Julia Donaldson, and Kathy Henderson, among others; visit her instagram account for lots eerie goodness! Her first novel, Thornhill, was a critical and commercial success, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the UKLA Book Awards, the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2018, and winning the 2018 British Book Design & Production Award for Graphic Novels. She lives in Cambridge, UK.
US/UK, Giveaway ends 9/19 at 11:59pm ET
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I have been hearing about this book. It looks really interesting. It's not quite the kind of book I would normally pick up, but I do want to read it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and a chance to win a copy.
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