Review of "Shy" by Max Porter

Another short but powerful book from Max Porter, this time about a troubled young man in the care system. As with the other books, the typography and layout are important, so that the book is almost a piece of visual art. But just before I read this I saw Max Porter do some of it as a performance piece at the Stroud Book Festival, backed by two drum and bass producer-DJs, and with a young man taking the part of Shy...not saying any of the words, all of which were performed by Porter, but altering his posture on stage in response to the narrative. It sounds a bit pretentious, but it was actually amazing.

The book, and the performance, alternates between Shy's own voice and those of all the people around him - his mum, his stepfather, the therapists and care workers...

I rarely queue up after the event to meet the author and get a signed book, but I had to do it this time, because I wanted to tell Max Porter how great he had been...I was especially moved by the fact that in his "chat" session at the festival he referred to the Ceasefire vigil taking part outside the venue (none of the other authors seemed to have noticed it) and said that he'd joined for a while and had noticed the Jewish participants. 

Ruth read the book after me and wasn't as affected as I was, or as she had been by the other books, which makes me think that the experience of the performance was important in shaping my reading.