The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean

The extraordinary first adult novel from prizewinning author of Skellig, David Almond

Billy Dean is the child of an illicit relationship between a priest and a young hairdresser. He is born on the very day that terrorists attack his town, and the fact that he survives and flourishes persuades his father that he is a special child with special gifts. Even so, Billy's birth can't be made public, and he spends his childhood in a single room, dreaming of other worlds, occasionally visited at night by his father. When the visits come to a sudden end, his mother decides it's time for Billy to come out into the world, helped by a couple of friendly townspeople, and soon he finds that his supposed gifts bring him a certain celebrity. But his father hasn't gone for good, and there's a terrible reckoning still to be made.
David Almond's first adult novel is a brilliant account of a child long kept hidden from the world who finally finds that he can establish his place in it - only to be confronted with a past that won't go away.