Honey Brown moves to the city and suburbs for her new thriller, shedding light into some very dark corners. Full review: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/2014/05/13/crime-scene-honey-brown-cracks-rev... ( )

This novel tells the story of two boys, streetwise 18yo Billy and the younger teenager, Adam who has been kept locked up and abused by a man he believes to be his father. The exact details of the abuse suffered by Adam is never explicitly spelt out but we are made to understand that it is of the worst sort. Apart from sexual abuse, he has deprived of a childhood and an education, is tied to the table while being fed and is frequently locked up in a windowless room. One day he is able to finally overcome his father and escape from the house with the aid of Billy, who takes him under his wing while he gets to know the world around him.

Billy's life has also been one of deprivation; poverty and violence at the hands of his father and sexual abuse at the hands of the religious institution he was sent to to straighten him out. He has learnt to get by through petty crime and selling sexual favours to older men. However, Billy is almost tender in his treatment of Adam who he realises is totally innocent and unworldly, taking care to protect him and making sure he has food and somewhere safe to sleep off the streets. Unfortunately Billy still manages to get involved in some ugly incidents that may lead them into trouble with the police. However, Adam and Billy discover they have some history in common and eventually realise that there is another story to Adam's life and the revelation of what this is adds quite a twist to the story.

This book is very topical in dealing with some very dark issues relating to child abuse that are all too present in our society today. However, the story is so well told that at no time did I find it too dark and depressing, although the subject matter is often very confronting. We are immediately drawn to Adam as the wide-eyed innocent who has somehow survived his years of abuse and torture to remain a sweet kid (although he will surely need years of pyschiatric help to truly overcome the trauma he has suffered). The descriptions of life on the margins for Billy and the people he associates with also feel very authentic and helped to explain why Billy makes the bad choices he does as a matter of survival. Highly recommended. ( )

As if authors don’t have it tough enough these days with slim to non-existent advances and a staggering amount of competition, they can even be poorly served by those who are supposedly on their side. In the case of Honey Brown’s THROUGH THE CRACKS the publishers have, by including significant information not revealed until the last third of the novel, drained much of the suspense for any reader foolish enough to take even a peak at the book’s blurb. So, my first piece of advice is that if you have even a vague notion that you might read this book do not, under any circumstances, look at the back cover.

My next piece of advice is to pick yourself up a copy of the book and dive in immediately (perhaps covering it in brown paper lest you accidentally spot the giant spoiler so prominently featured in the blurb).

THROUGH THE CRACKS opens with a teenage boy locking his father in one of the rooms of the house in which he has been kept a prisoner for as long as he can remember. After suffering many years of abuse at his father’s hands Adam is finally big enough, strong enough, brave enough to turn the tables. But doing more…leaving the house for example…proves even more difficult than standing up to his father. Help arrives in an unlikely form.

Although the subject matter of this novel is about as dark as it gets Brown does not concern herself with the kind of grubby details a sensationalist media outlet, or a lesser book, might do. Some details of what Adam has experienced are provided but not in a prurient or voyeuristic way, and the shocks, inevitable as they are in such a story, come more from the perspective events are seen from. This is not the story of someone who has any knowledge of social norms, right and wrong, normality. It is the story of a teenager learning about a world he’s had precious little experience of

"Adam dulled his hearing and he backed up, inside himself. He stopped looking through his eyes and looked out from them instead. It wasn’t the same way he’d retreated when being beaten or hurt. He was withdrawing for the opposite reason. He needed to see and feel everything, but without distance it was too much. Standing back, inside himself, he was able to get a better view of things…Money mattered…Meanness didn’t only take place indoors and behind high fences."

As fictional characters Adam and the homeless boy who takes him under his wing are unforgettable.

I assume it was Brown’s deliberate choice to be vague about concrete aspects of the novel’s setting. To place it in time for example you have to be reasonably conversant with Australia’s TV programming and other minor cultural references over the past 20 years or so and I really only noticed one element which told me the state in which the story is set. But specific locations – the house where Adam lived, the room into which he was fearfully locked, the temporary safe-havens he and his new friend find – are all vividly, and terrifyingly where applicable, brought to life.

I had no intention of reading this entire book yesterday evening but after the first chapter or two I was…unwilling if not unable…to put it down. In this era of giant tomes needing a jolly good edit THROUGH THE CRACKS is as long as it needs to be to tell its compelling, confronting and worryingly credible story. Without dwelling on sensationalist details the book conveys some of the myriad ways in which abuse and neglect can manifest themselves and depicts the surprising array of responses human beings can have to such circumstances. And if you don’t read the blurb the ending is as satisfying as they come.

“Within the space of one week Adam grew strong enough to stop him. Somewhere in those seven days a tipping point had been reached….
‘Don’t touch me.’
‘What did you say to me?’
Adam straightened his elbow and shoved his father in the chest.”

After enduring years of confinement and abuse at the hands of his father, Joe, Adam finally pushes back, but having secured his freedom he has no idea what to do with it…until Billy finds him. Placing his trust in the streetwise teen, Adam tentatively ventures beyond his suburban prison for the first time in years, but no matter the direction the pair take to escape, their past refuses to let them go.

Through The Cracks is an intense and provocative read, though not quite the thriller, I have come to expect from Honey Brown. Delving into the darkest recesses of society, Brown explores the fates of two very different young boys and their struggle to survive, and move on from, a shared history of abuse, exploitation and neglect.

Though ultimately a story of hope, Through the Cracks is not an easy read. Written with brutal realism, the themes are disturbing, and certain details, though never gratuitous, can be confronting. Most readers will find themselves heart sore and indignant as Adam and Billy evoke sympathy and admiration, their tormentors engender disgust, and those that fail the boys provoke outrage and guilt, while raising questions about society’s failure to protect its most vulnerable members.

Through the Cracks is a powerfully affecting tale but I think the publisher does a huge disservice to the book by linking Nathan Fisher’s and Adam’s identities in the blurb. It blunts the revelations that come as the story unfolds, and while still an absorbing read, I found there were very few surprises, and little suspense. ( )

Thank you to Penguin Australia and The Reading Room for the ARC.

Through the Cracks is not a cushy, comfortable read – let’s get that out of the way first. You won’t be chuckling to yourself as you read this – in fact, you’re more likely to be squirming in your seat as your mind conjures the images that Honey Brown suggests has happened to her protagonists. It’s a well written novel, but it deals with subject matter that most of us are fortunate not to have any experience with. It’s a book that you’ll feel slightly guilty for racing through the pages, trying to work out if someone, anyone, gets their happy ending.

The blurb on the back of the book suggests what has happened to Adam, but it certainly doesn’t prepare you for the narrative. Adam is a teenage boy, who is usually locked in the backroom by his abusive father. One day, Adam snaps and hits his father. The game then changes as Adam slowly begins to equalise the relationship with his father. Eventually, Adam makes his escape into a world that he’s never known. A chance meeting with another teenage boy, Billy (who uses Adam’s father’s pool) finds Adam on the street. However, Billy has knowledge of that life and guides Adam through it. The boys then begin to realise that Adam’s father was part of something much bigger, involving a number of men, women and possibly an organisation in the abuse of young boys. As they set out to settle the score, things become much more dangerous for Billy and Adam…and Adam discovers he may not be Adam after all…

The time and setting of Through the Cracks is somewhat murky – at first I thought it was Brisbane (perhaps because of the heat and humidity described) but later I think I recall trams and Geelong being mentioned, so it’s more likely to be Melbourne. As for time, it appears to be set in the 1980s, but it’s hazy (no mobile phones mentioned and everyone’s smoking indoors). I would have liked to have known a time and location, just to set the scene in my mind.

Initially, Adam reminded me of the boy from Emma Donoghue’s Room, in that everything is new to him. His knowledge of everyday life comes only from television, but it’s lucky that Adam has Billy to guide him. Billy’s world weary and street smart. With him to guide Adam, his fate could have been much, much worse. The boys are no angels while they’re on the streets – stealing cars and breaking and entering but it’s written in such a way that you don’t blame the boys for doing all they can to survive. As this is happening, the true story about Adam’s history is being revealed – the abduction, detention and abuse. Is he really even Adam? Billy reveals he knew more about Adam than he first let on, and we find out how for him, the abuse has continued, compounded by a fractured family life and threats from an organisation. The ending is both heart-warming and heartbreaking.

I found Through the Cracks a difficult read for its gloominess – there are very few happy points in this novel. It’s confronting and dark, tackling issues that we prefer not to occur in society. I’d suggest balancing this one out with another book with a happily ever after. It’s an important subject, but not a happy one.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )