The Wrong Child

21 of 22 children in a rural village die in a disaster. By chance, the `wrong’ child, Dog Evans, lives. Crippled with survivor’s guilt, his parents abandon Dog to a feral, marginal life, shunned by those left behind, for whom his presence is a daily reminder of unbearable loss. In The Wrong Child, author Barry Gornell’s forensic gaze dissects the fractured lives of the bereaved, frozen the day their children died. Deborah Cutter, rejected by husband John, numbs her pain with alcohol and sex. Local postman, Nugget, clings to the hope the Evans house contains valuable secrets. Parish priest, Father Wittin, is an embarrassing irrelevance. As grief burns to rage, the villagers’ insatiable desire for catharsis and sacrifice becomes unstoppable. The master of `rural noir’, Gornell has created a mesmerising, heart breaking examination of small town life with a remarkable note of hope within the darkness.

Reviews of The Wrong Child

`The Wrong Child is a startling and uncompromising story of grief and anger, of abandonment and decay. Itis intense – darker than dark – but also original and beautiful. Watch out for this Gornell fellow, folks, he is extremely good' Helen Fitzgerald, author of The Cry and The Donor