The Boy With No Shoes A Memoir

The bleakness of post war London is evident and shocking from the start. One finds themselves startled and sobbing as repeated acts of abuse are unwittingly subjected on Jimmy and described as only an innocent child can convey to adults unable to understand the true level of abuse. Thank God for Granny whom we find ourselves cheering celebrating and caring for to the end. The Boy With No Shoes sorts the abusers from the abused. Those who have experienced even one of Jimmy''s experiences will completely understand just how dark darktime is and the allure of darktime and it''s intoxicating erosion of one''s spirit. Jimmy we realise is lucky to escape with his life which is a statement of his resilience as a person and a testament of his love for Granny, Mr & Mrs Bubbles and various others. Jimmy has a rare capacity for love observed through a tiny tunnel of love the existence of which is repeated asaulted to near non-existence particularly by his mother, whose unnaturalness is mirrored in Oedipus Rex. I shed tears throughout and cheered him and his classmates to the end, as they revealed one source of their abuse and shed light on their many insecurities. Understanding the depth of the experiences described here I find this book extraordinary in its frankness and the fact that the narrative is by men whom we find rarely expose the depth of character and experience found here. An extraordinary book and one all adolescents should read and examine as a biography dealing with issues that trangress time and history.