Fierce People - Tapa blanda

'Sharp and savvy, Fierce People is both a souped-up-coming of age novel and a satire on class and the American aristocracy. a species which is commonly held not to exist, but which Wittenborn anatomises with wit and insight' Telegraph 'A whacked out hybrid of Dickens and Salinger, a compelling, and moving, coming-of-age novel which dares to tackle the last great taboo in American literature - the subject of class. And the second to last great taboo - New Jersey' Jay McInerney 'Punched-up with sexual awakening, loss of innocence, first love, drugs, battles lost and won, adolescent rebellion. Dirk Wittenborn captures it all with a bright and vivid intensity' Bret Easton Ellis 'A brilliantly written rites of passage story in ironic The Catcher in The Rye mould' The Scotsman

1978: Lower East Side, New York Fifteen-year-old Finn Earl's mother, Liz, is a thirty-two-year old masseuse with a taste for cocaine. When Liz's habit forces them to flee the city, they find protection under the wing of one of her clients, ageing billionaire Mr Osborne. In Vlyvalle, a golden playground for the super-rich, Finn discovers a people who are stranger, more savage, and more secretive than any tribe in National Geographic. Offered a new life and new friends he falls in love and grows up fast. But, on what should be the happiest night of Finn's life, on an island in the middle of a private lake, naked and high with Osborne's bewitching granddaughter, someone is watching him from the depths of the forest..and laughing. 'The ingredients of this study of adolescent loss-of-innocence conform to a well-tried formula, used here with energy and fluency,,,he is both savage and funny' Sunday Telegraph 'Wittenborn re-creates the mind of a 15-year-old with verve and humour..the jokes are good..the dialogue is crisp ' The Telegraph