Luke and Jon - Tapa blanda

'It's a hell of a thing to accuse a new writer of wisdom, but that's what Robert Williams's first novel has: a warm, dead-to-rights understanding of the human heart, expressed in prose as clear as a glass of water. I'd predict great things for him, but I think that they've already begun.' --Francis Spufford

'Compassionate and perceptive ... Simply a great read.' -- Adele Parks

'A striking and extremely moving debut.' --Alex Clark

'Like many classic stories of childhood, Robert Williams's Luke and Jon is told with an outsider's eye: cool and clear and hiding deep emotion beneath a carapace of coping ... the language with which he recounts this tale of friendship and survival seems newly minted. The kind of book that reminds you why, as a child, you started reading in the first place.' --Financial Times

'The prose here is almost a poem ... Luke and Jon is a novel of promise in every sense... We are left satisfied yet wanting more. 'It was special' as Luke says. 'It was enough.'' --Sheena Joughin, TLS

Luke's mum is dead. He finds himself in a small, scruffy northern hill town, with a near silent father, who he fears might be trying to drink himself to death. Then he meets Jon. Jon is massively strange. He wears 1950s clothes, has a side-parting and a twitch. The kids at school call him 'Slackjaw'. When Luke discovers his secret, Jon changes his life in more ways than he can imagine. Luke and Jon is a coming of age novel about family, bereavement and how lives can change forever in a single second. Written with great power, warmth and humour, it signals a hugely engaging and original new voice. Compelling and emotionally acute, it is a unique debut.