The Boyhood of Cain

by Michael Amherst

Overview

A searing novel of love and betrayal as a young boy comes of age in the heart of England, from an exquisite new voice.

In the shadow of an ancient abbey nestled between rivers, Daniel is growing up. He is highly intelligent but little understood by his parents, and a secret passion burns inside him for love and recognition. When his father loses his job as the headmaster of the local school, his family stumbles into a rural life for which they are ill-prepared. Daniel’s sole solace is the arrival of Philip, a new boy at school, whom he worships with a confused intensity. Before long, both boys fall under the spell of a charismatic art teacher, setting Daniel on a perilous course that could lead to the betrayal of all he loves. 

Tender, brutal, and enthralling, The Boyhood of Cain is a remarkable portrait of a young boy caught between mother and father, self and desire, and obedience and freedom. It evokes the passions and private wounds of youth, and plumbs the turning points in our lives that make us who we are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593718520
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/25/2025
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Amherst is the author of Go the Way Your Blood Beats: On Truth, Bisexuality & Desire, which won the 2019 Stonewall Book Award for nonfiction. He is the winner of the 2020 Hubert Butler Essay Prize, and his short fiction has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. His journalism and criticism have been published in The Guardian and New Statesman, among other outlets. The Boyhood of Cain is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

12/16/2024

The debut novel from Amherst (after the memoir Go the Way Your Blood Beats) is a muted coming-of-age tale set in 1990s England. Daniel’s father leaves his job as headmaster of the local preparatory school, where Daniel is enrolled, due to health issues. His parents sells their house and move to the country, a rupture that feels to Daniel “like a death.” Awkward and slight, he struggles at school without the safety net of his father being in a position of power. He befriends Philip, a new student, and tries to win the approval of Mr. Miller, the school’s English and art master. Daniel’s mother suffers bouts of depression and his father drinks to excess. Meanwhile, their son challenges the local vicar when discussing Jesus (“If you are God then there shouldn’t be poor always,” he contends) and butts heads with Mr. Miller while analyzing John Constable’s painting The Hay Wain (“Reality and truth are not the same thing,” Mr. Miller argues). Amherst writes with a measured pace and careful attention to his youthful protagonist’s malleability as Daniel questions his sexuality and other supposed binaries of life. The result is an authentic depiction of youthful fears and confusions. Agent: John Ash, CAA. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2025-01-18
An English boy engages with sex, art, and religion without the guidance of his failing parents.

Daniel’s father is the headmaster of a choir school, a plum position in a small English town and one that will soon evaporate. An illness and financial mismanagement force him into an early retirement and a half-life of ill-advised farming. Daniel’s mother, meanwhile, slumps into a depression that eventually becomes suicidal. In the midst remains the boy (as Amherst calls him), trying to matter-of-factly interpret the adult world. He’s impressed by psychotherapy, which he learns about on TV (“People are just like books—full of hidden meanings that need to be unearthed by an attentive reader”) and becomes indignant that the Anglican Church says he’ll have to become confirmed before receiving communion, so he refuses to do it (“Is this not exactly what Jesus would have done, he asks his parents? His mother does not welcome the comparison”). Daniel’s joys are drawn from Philip, a boy as smart as him but with more charisma and a stable family, and from Mr. Miller, a “young and exciting” art teacher who tutors the two boys in painting while their classmates play. Mr. Miller’s hipness is thrilling—he prefers Fauvism to John Constable—but it becomes sinister when he discusses “sex appeal” with a class of preadolescents. The novel’s plain style is contemporary, though Amherst is comfortable with figurative language: A vicar has a “face like a spoon,” the gap between two posh houses is “like a held breath before one makes a choice.” But when Amherst embraces ambiguity, in the moments where Daniel must admit no answer is to be found, the novel contains the same eerie spark that makes the bildungsromans of Hermann Hesse crackle.

A coming-of-adolescence novel that rigorously avoids cliche.

Kirkus Reviews

"Amherst has Coetzee’s surface calmness, inner turbulence, understated emotion and muted wit...With The Boyhood of Cain, a star is born." –The Guardian

“Amherst’s words matter as they limn Daniel’s life in beautifully realized, psychologically acute, and nearly granular detail. [Daniel] is an unfailingly fascinating, memorable character. A reader can’t ask for anything more." –Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“Amherst writes with a measured pace and careful attention to his youthful protagonist’s malleability as Daniel questions his sexuality and other supposed binaries of life. The result is an authentic depiction of youthful fears and confusions.” –Publishers Weekly

"Approaches this subject with skill and sensitivity... Amherst writes in a crisp fashion, eschewing unnecessary detail, which leads to a book that feels stripped down to its most essential elements... an interesting and unusual book." –John Boyne, Irish Times

“When Amherst embraces ambiguity, in the moments where Daniel must admit no answer is to be found, the novel contains the same eerie spark that makes the bildungsromans of Hermann Hesse crackle. A coming-of-adolescence novel that rigorously avoids cliche.” –Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

"A powerful, searing tale told by a boy facing the plenitude of life but hemmed in by a world so…ordinary that he can’t wait either to flee it or be drowned in it." –André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name

"A beautiful and profound novel about a boy's coming to consciousness as his family falls apart. Utterly compelling and quietly devastating, I read this book with my heart in my mouth and could not put it down." –Mary Costello, author of The River Capture

"Told in a voice that is both bracing and embracing...Amherst delivers Danny's spellbinding story with rare sharpness, profundity and heart.” –Michael Donkor, author of Housegirl

"A gorgeous and propulsive portrait of the end of childhood...Beautifully written, with unwavering empathy and precise, perfect details, Amherst is a true talent. I loved it." –Anna Hogeland, author of The Long Answer

From the Publisher