Publisher's Synopsis
Set in England during the 1950s, this semiautobiographical novel follows 13-year-old Thomas Penman, a boy who lives in a small town in Kent and who is obsessed with all of his bodily excretions. Life at home and at schoolisn't easy, and only his grandfather Walter, a World War I veteran who collects pornographic magazines and communicates in Morse code, seems to understand him. Focusing on the relationship between Thomas and Walter, who is slowly dyingof cancer, this novel features a dysfunctional family as the backdrop for important universal themes such as God and faith, puberty and coming-of-age, love and sex, hatred and bitterness, and life and death."Ambientada en Inglaterra en los anos cincuenta, esta novela parcialmente autobiografica sigue a Thomas Penman, un nino de 13 anos que vive en un pueblecito en Kent y que esta obsesionado con todas las excreciones de su cuerpo. La vida en su casa y escuela no es facil, y solo su abuelo Walter, un veterano de la Primera Guerra Mundial que colecciona revistas pornograficas y se comunica mediante el codigo Morse, parece entenderle. Enfocandose sobre la relacion entre Thomas y Walter, quien se esta muriendo de cancer, esta novela usa una familia disfuncional para enmarcar temas universales importantes tales como Dios y la fe, la pubertad y la juventud, el amor y el sexo, el odio y el resentimiento y la vida y la muerte.""
