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Overview
Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically fills his life with daily routines and adheres to strict boundaries that keep him at a remove from the townspeople. But one day he spies Josephine, his new neighbor from London. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble—and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn.
Synopsis
Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically fills his life with daily routines and adheres to strict boundaries that keep him at a remove from the townspeople. But one day he spies Josephine, his new neighbor from London. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble—and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn.
The Washington Post - Thomas Meaney
Sam Marsdyke has already earned comparisons to Anthony Burgess's Singin'-in-the-Rain Alex, among other esteemed psychopaths. But Out Backward more convincingly registers the internal logic of unredeemable delinquency, a dangerous subjectivity that perverts compassion and sees everything as an extension of itself.
Editorials
J. M. Coetzee
"Ross Raisin’s story of how a disturbed but basically well-intentioned rural youngster turns into a malevolent sociopath is both chilling in its effect and convincing in its execution."Thomas Meaney
Sam Marsdyke has already earned comparisons to Anthony Burgess's Singin'-in-the-Rain Alex, among other esteemed psychopaths. But Out Backward more convincingly registers the internal logic of unredeemable delinquency, a dangerous subjectivity that perverts compassion and sees everything as an extension of itself.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
In this creepy, lyrical debut, Raisin explores the fine line between sanity and insanity with Sam Marsdyke, an awkward late teenager who was thrown out of school after being accused of attempting to rape a schoolmate. Sam now works his family's farm along with his father, and there he notices Josephine Reeves, a 15-year-old whose family has moved from London to the Yorkshire village where Sam resides. After an inauspicious beginning, Sam and Josephine strike up a friendship that culminates with them running away together. Soon, Sam's tenuous grip on reality slips, giving the reader a frightening glimpse into the mind of a psychopath. What happens next will shock readers, yet compel them to read faster to learn the outcome. Although the author's liberal use of the Yorkshire dialect and a stream-of-consciousness narration ("Sackless article the wether kept indoors, as Father went and in the pen and fastened the tupping harness around the ram's neck, and the gate was unsnecked"), it's true to the protagonists roots and lends an air of authority to this tightly plotted and disturbing effort. (July)
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Adult/High School
Prior to the opening of this story, teenager Sam Marsdyke was dogged by accusations of rape, forcing him to leave school and work on his family's farm in Yorkshire, England. When a new family with a 15-year-old daughter moves in next door, Sam's father orders his son to keep his distance. But Sam's obsession with the forbidden drives him to stalk Jo, and the two eventually meet. A friendship develops, and it doesn't take long for the attraction to turn physical. They run away together, and all goes well until Jo decides she wants to return home to her family. Sam's tenuous hold on reality slips as events careen out of his control. While the story often points toward Sam and his psychopathic tendencies, Raisin plays with the lines of power in the relationship by suggesting that Jo knew all about the rumors of Sam's past and sought him out. This echo of themes from Nabokov's Lolita questions who really is the victim. The story is plotted more along the lines of a literary novel than a thriller, and the focus rests on the deep examination of the characters and what drives them. Because it is written in Yorkshire dialect, which recalls the visceral lyricism of Irvine Welsh, some readers might be put off by the prose, but those able to soak into it will find a rewarding-if somewhat disturbing-tale of fear, obsession, and sexuality.-Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA