One of the Boys, Daniel Magariel
One of the Boys, Daniel Magariel
2 Rating(s)
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One of the Boys

Author: Daniel Magariel

Narrator: Gibson Frazier

Unabridged: 3 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/14/2017


Synopsis

A “gripping and heartfelt” (The New York Times Book Review) story about two young brothers contending with the love they have for their abusive father, One of the Boys is “one of the most striking debut novels of the year” (Rolling Stone).

The three of them—a twelve-year-old boy, his older brother, their father—have won the war: the father’s term for his bitter divorce and custody battle. They leave their Kansas home and drive through the night to Albuquerque, eager to begin again, united by the thrilling possibility of carving out a new life together. The boys go to school, join basketball teams, make friends. Meanwhile their father works from home, smoking cheap cigars to hide another smell. But soon the little missteps—the dead-eyed absentmindedness, the late night noises, the comings and goings of increasingly odd characters—become worrisome, and the boys find themselves watching their father change, grow erratic, then dangerous.

Set in the sublimely stark landscape of suburban New Mexico and a cramped apartment shut tight to the world, One of the Boys conveys with propulsive prose and extraordinary compassion a young boy’s struggle to hold onto the pieces of his shattered family. Tender, moving and beautiful, Daniel Magariel’s debut is a masterful story of resilience and survival. With the emotional core of A Little Life and the speed of We the Animals, it is “A knockout...A shimmering, heartbreaking portrait of children fiercely devoted to a damaged parent and of the intense sibling bond that helps them through” (People).

About Daniel Magariel

Daniel Magariel is an author from Kansas City. His work has appeared in Granta, LitHub, Salt Hill, Stop Smiling, and Issue Magazine, among others. He is the author of Walk the Darkness Down and One of the Boys, his debut novel that was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, shortlisted for the Lucien Barrière Prize, and translated into eight languages. He has a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Fellow. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in Cape May, New Jersey. Visit him at DanielMagariel.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Susanne on August 16, 2017

What do you do when the people you are supposed to trust and rely on most in this world, let you down? When those people are your parents and when you give them unconditional love and get the exact opposite in return? One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel is a fictional story about a dysfunctional fami......more

Goodreads review by Esil on March 09, 2017

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what makes reading fiction worthwhile, especially when a novel hits as hard as One of the Boys. It’s a short book, but it’s dark, harsh and painful. The story opens with the 12 year old narrator leaving Kansas with his older brother and father. They are leaving the......more

Goodreads review by Alex.andthebooks on February 08, 2023

To jest naprawdę dobra książka! Już od pierwszych stron przesycona niepokojem, niezwykle absorbująca. Ukazana w niej relacja ojciec-synowie pełna jest manipulacji, parentyfikacji i brutalności.......more

Goodreads review by Claire on April 03, 2017

One of the Boys packs a huge emotional punch. This is the unflinching story of an abusive father and his two sons after he takes them away from their mother, told using wonderfully stark prose. I was particularly affected by how the younger son begins to copy his father in believing that his mother......more