The Tightrope Walkers, by David Almond
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The Tightrope Walkers, by David Almond
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International award winner David Almond draws on memories of his early years in Tyneside, England, for a moving coming-of-age novel, masterfully told.A gentle visionary coming of age in the shadow of the shipyards of northern England, Dominic Hall is torn between extremes. On the one hand, he craves the freedom he feels when he steals away with the eccentric girl artist next door, Holly Stroud—his first and abiding love—to balance above the earth on a makeshift tightrope. With Holly, Dom dreams of a life different in every way from his shipbuilder dad’s, a life fashioned of words and images and story. On the other hand, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to the brutal charms of Vincent McAlinden, a complex bully who awakens something wild and reckless and killing in Dom. In a raw and beautifully crafted bildungsroman, David Almond reveals the rich inner world of a boy teetering on the edge of manhood, a boy so curious and open to impulse that we fear for him and question his balance—and ultimately exult in his triumphs.
The Tightrope Walkers, by David Almond - Amazon Sales Rank: #73123 in Books
- Brand: Almond, David
- Published on: 2015-03-24
- Released on: 2015-03-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.31" h x 1.13" w x 6.31" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
The Tightrope Walkers, by David Almond From School Library Journal Gr 9 Up—Dominic Hall is the son of a shipbuilder, living in modest conditions in mid-20th century England. As he grows up, he finds himself torn between two influences—the dreamy intellectual artist girl next door and the brutal outcast boy who seems to cultivate a darker side of Dominic's nature. His coming-of-age is marked by the ramifications of his choices between the two. The Tightrope Walkers is a tour de force. Almond's gifted prose sets readers firmly in the grim, gray-skied setting of a post-World War II British town inhabited by deeply layered and well-crafted characters. The use of a thick working-class dialect for many of the protagonists yields immersive dialogue that might have been off-putting in a lesser author's hands. Dominic's development takes place among moments of overwhelming bleakness and his experiences with the redemptive powers of human connection and art. The balance between these is precarious and realistic, and the span of years encompassed by the book flies by. The novel is by turns reminiscent of classic bildungsromans such as the Billy Elliott film, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Stephen King's IT, yet it retains a distinctive heart and voice of its own. While instances of violence are eventually tempered, it is best suited for mature readers. An absolute must-have.—Erinn Black Salge, Saint Peter's Prep, Jersey City, NJ
Review The text overflows with sensory detail that lifts clean off the page the stink of the oil from the ship’s dark tank and the scratch of Dom’s pen as he writes his way free of his father’s hard life. Almond’s rough, beautiful world of books and ships, sinners and saints is a lyrical reminder of how, when we lose our equilibrium, art can redeem us.—The New York TimesA tour de force. ... The novel is by turns reminiscent of classic bildungsromans such as the Billy Elliott film, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Stephen King’s IT, yet it retains a distinctive heart and voice of its own. ... An absolute must-have.—School Library Journal (starred review)The award-winning Almond poetically plumbs the depths of his 1950s and '60s childhood to explore themes of violence, war, God, creativity, beauty, death, art, the soul, our animal selves, whether we ever grow up or can really know each other…in short, life.—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)In a powerfully realistic bildungsroman from award-winning author Almond (The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean), Dominic Hall, the son of a working man from Newcastle, seems destined for greater success than was possible for his ill-educated and often angry father.... Almond’s characteristic penetrating writing and finely drawn characters are on full display in a story more fully grounded in a specific and important historical moment than anything he has published heretofore.—Publishers Weekly (starred review)Some books stand out for their characters, others for their sense of place, and some for their stories and themes. Almond has a facility for all those elements. The two most sharply drawn characters here are Vincent, as polluted as the Tyne but a force of nature nonetheless, and, rather surprisingly, Mr. Hall.... Teens will feel the events most viscerally—the brutishness, the love, the rejections. Adults, meanwhile, will bring their own world-weary self-knowledge, which cuts in its own way. Wild and reckless, heartbreaking and hopeful—this elegy on life is not to be missed.—Booklist (starred review)The novel is Shakespearean in its breadth, earthiness, and emotional pitch. A mysterious tramp who wanders in and out of the narrative—unspeaking, benevolent, holy—is like a precursor of Skellig. It ends with a wedding and a newborn baby, but that final section is a Rorschach test for the reader. Is the overall mode comedic or tragic? There is much room for discussion in this difficult and brilliant novel.—Horn Book (starred review)In prose that reads like richly imagistic poetry, Dom sorts through what it means to walk a metaphorical tightrope, caught between social classes, between his mother’s dreams and his father’s fears, between his gentler, creative nature and his attraction to the rough camaraderie of outlaw boys and working men. The interplay between the characters and their environments results in a stunningly human and humanizing story. This is by far Almond’s best work to date, and in light of the awards he’s already accrued, that’s saying something—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)Almond's magnetic narrative conveys the sounds and heat of the shipyards, the smells of the circus tent where Dom and Holly see the tightrope walkers, the quality of the light at sunset after a satisfying day. And he tells of the tightrope humans walk between social divides, sanity and insanity, faith and doubt, friendship and sex, what we're born to, what we can rise above--and what traps us. Mesmerizing.—Shelf Awareness (starred review)Almond invites readers into the hearts and minds of these characters through authentic dialogue and rich description. This is a haunting tale of the kind of conflict and tension that is just right for young adults.—Literacy Daily
About the Author David Almond has received several major awards, including a Hans Christian Andersen Award, a Carnegie Medal, two Whitbread Awards, an Eleanor Farjeon Award, and a Michael L. Printz Award. He is known worldwide as the author of Skellig, Clay, and many other plays, stories, and novels, including The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean as well as The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers; The Savage, Slog’s Dad, and Mouse Bird Snake Wolf, illustrated by Dave McKean; and My Dad’s a Birdman and The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. David Almond lives in England.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Deeply personal coming-of-age story about family, social class, love and the artistic life in THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS By Teen Reads In THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS, David Almond writes a deeply personal coming-of-age story about family, social class, love and the artistic life --- all couched in exquisitely lovely prose.Every once in a while, I am assigned to review a book whose prose is so close to perfect that I'm tempted to simply string together a series of excerpts so potential readers can dive into the language themselves rather than wade through my comparatively clumsy attempts to distill the book's plot and themes. So, just to get things out of my system, let's start with a passage from David Almond's THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS about the coming of spring: "We wanted to walk and run with confidence across the earth. Wanted the sun to haul itself up from its sullen place low over the horizon, to get into the air above us and bliddy shine. Which it started to do of course. For the world turns, and keeps on turning, no matter how things might feel in the darkest of times. And carpets of ice on ponds retreated, and flowers of frost on windows faded, and pipes burst and homes were flooded, and gardens turned to muddy patches, and the whole world started to relax, to sigh."Winter in the narrator's northern industrial hometown of Newcastle, England, can seem particularly brutal, much like the city itself, which is dominated by the shipbuilding industry that employs most of the housing estate's fathers and sons (at least Dominic's part of it, anyway). Dominic's father is one of the blue-collar workers in the shipyards, but Dominic --- a quietly observant boy with a knack for putting words to paper ---dreams of a different sort of life for himself. These dreams become especially vivid when Dominic befriends his neighbor Holly, the artistically dreamy daughter of a draughtsman at the shipyard, whose quirkiness and ambitions for higher things are symbolized by her ambition to learn to walk a tightrope.Dominic is drawn to the lifestyle and aspirations hinted at by Holly and her family, but he is equally drawn to another kid from the neighborhood, Vincent McAlinden, a brutish but charismatic bully who both infuriates and fascinates Dominic. Vincent's aspirations are for cruelty and destruction, and in his darkest moments, Dominic is easily swayed toward joining Vincent in his deeds. The direction Dominic ultimately chooses will depend in large part on the kind of future he imagines for himself --- and the relationships he develops as a young person may in turn change that imagined future in ways no one could have foreseen. "We grow in order to discover ourselves," says one character. "But maybe we just discover ways of hiding our selves from ourselves." Throughout the book, Dominic finds himself grappling with what the nature of that true self truly is.THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS is, at times, not an easy book to read. It includes scenes of cruelty and violence, including rape and the killing of animals. But, side by side with these gruesome scenes are passages of exquisite beauty. This juxtaposition is, of course, no accident --- it mirrors how Dominic experiences life. When Dominic sees his possible future --- particularly his literary talent and ambitions --- as being at odds with his working-class background, he gets in danger of losing himself. But, when he can reconcile the two, his life makes a lot more sense: "writing books must be like making ships, welding words and pages in pursuit of an elusive image of the finished perfect thing." THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS is both brutal and romantic, realistic and fantastical --- and it offers a coming-of-age story that won't soon be forgotten.Reviewed by Norah Piehl
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Beautifully Written, Coming of Age YA Novel By Annette Lamb THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS by David Almond is the coming-of-age story of a boy torn between two very different friendships in the mid-20th century. While Holly represents artist freedom, Vincent reflects the wild, violent side of life.Based on the memories of the author growing up in northern England, this work of realistic fiction is told through very short chapters making it a quick read. The well-developed characters, use of local dialects, and authentic settings add to the appeal. Although technically a work of historical fiction, the story transcends time.From beauty and creativity to violence and death, Almond’s exploration of both the dark and light side of everyday life make this book special. The novel’s many metaphors and other literary elements make it an excellent book for young adult discussions. However because of the mature themes this book is not designed for children.Published by Candlewick Press in March 2015.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Walking a Fine Line By Making Good Stories Childhood relationships are tenuous, fragile things--you can so easily go from best friends to mortal enemies, and vice versa. In The Tightrope Walkers, a bildungsroman by David Almond, the relationships between friends is explored while the narrator grows into a young man.Set in northern England, Dominic Hall has conflicting relationships with a boy and a girl in his neighborhood. With the older Vincent McAlinden, there is a brutish element to the relationship that easily crosses the line into bullying territory. With the artistically inclined Holly Stroud, Dominic dares to improve his writing skill and dream of fanciful things, including a life different from his father's. Coming to a balance between the opposing forces in his life, Dominic grows from boyhood into manhood while trying to keep himself part of both friends' worlds.The text is filled with nice language and description, one such element being the depiction of the northern dialect to provide a more realistic image of the characters to complement the grittiness of the story's events. The narrative is paced rather rapidly due to the somewhat brief chapters, which keeps readers moving forward to see how Dominic evolves. Maintaining a sense of wonder and aspiration are two of the larger takeaways that seem to come from the story as both Holly and Vincent encourage Dominic to be better and dream larger. There were some clues provided in the text to place the story in time, yet it seems as if it is a timeless sort of story about life, growing up, and finding yourself and place in the world.
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