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47th out of 86 books
—
144 voters
Children of the Sun
by
Max Schaefer
1970: Fourteen-year-old Tony becomes seduced by Britain’s neo-Nazi movement, sucked into a world of brutal racist violence and bizarre ritual. It’s an environment in which he must hide his sexuality, in which every encounter is potentially deadly.
2003: James is a young writer, living with his boyfriend. In search of a subject, he begins looking into the Far Right in Britai...more
2003: James is a young writer, living with his boyfriend. In search of a subject, he begins looking into the Far Right in Britai...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
August 17th 2010
by Soft Skull Press
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Superb, stupendous, a brilliant new writer has come along. Started this on Friday, now Sunday, almost finished. Watch this space for review.
Life’s full of little ironies. I left off reading Les Miserables when Hugo went into a seemingly interminible digression about the Battle of Waterloo. I needed a rest so I began reading this as soon as it was given to me. I finished it in two days, coming upon near the end another Battle of Waterloo, this one at Waterloo Station, on 12 September, 1992, and h...more
Life’s full of little ironies. I left off reading Les Miserables when Hugo went into a seemingly interminible digression about the Battle of Waterloo. I needed a rest so I began reading this as soon as it was given to me. I finished it in two days, coming upon near the end another Battle of Waterloo, this one at Waterloo Station, on 12 September, 1992, and h...more
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Max Schaeferʼs debut “Children of the Sun” falls into a genre I hardly ever read, in fact it's well outside my usual comfort zone. What could be further away from my own life experience, i.e. that of a pretty liberal minded married women, than that of a gay skinhead living in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s?!?! An exciting book cover and a text that includes copies of newsprint from those times promise an interesting perspective into a very strange world.
Schaefer gives us two fictional storyl...more
Schaefer gives us two fictional storyl...more
When I first heard about Children of the Sun, I assumed the title was taken from the classic sixties psyche single of the same name by The Misunderstood, but anyone who reads the book can see that it actually invokes Savitri Devi, a particularly bonkers and unpleasant exponent of post-war Nazi occultism, and one of the founding members of the World Union of National Socialists. That said, the focus of this ‘novel’ is very much on English neo-Nazi scum of the Thatcher era; although Devi does appe...more
Children Of The Sun by Max Schaefer is perhaps the best novel about gay Nazi skinheads I've ever read. OK, that's a pretty niche market yet somehow Max has managed to write a superb debut novel that interweaves the true story of Oi! icon, Nicky Crane who came out as gay in the early 90s and died of Aids not much later with the fictional stories of Tony, another gay skin living through the 70s and 80s skin/NF scene and James, a modern day gay skin researching Crane and Skrewdriver for a possible...more
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It’s hard to form a cohesive opinion on this book, even to decide whether I liked it. What cannot be denied is the depth and thoroughness of the author’s research. The reader is immersed in the world of the far right movement in the 70s, 80s and 90s, a world of skinheads and Nazi salutes, and the chapters are interspersed with copies of posters, newspaper articles and general memorabilia from those days. One of the chief characters is carrying out research into gay membership of the National Fro...more
This is a book about british neo-nazis in the 1970s and 80s, and in particular about the gay subset that existed, kind of rather openly, within it. SUPER random topic, but this was sitting on the new book shelf at the library and i thought it might be interesting. It was. It's fiction (historical fiction, I guess, so recent though), but it's almost non fiction. This book is about a guy living in the UK in the 90s who is trying to be a writer and rather randomly decides to research and write abou...more
Terrible beginning to middle; it was just endless pages of exposition and excessive detailing of the formation of various splinter groups of the larger British neo-nazi movement. Tony's narrative in particular dragged on. I must admit though, the ending was unexpectedly tender and earned the book an extra star. I'm not sure if I just couldn't get into it because of my relative lack of experience with the culture of various far-right groups or that the writing was just not the best. For fulfillin...more
I enjoyed this book, though I thought there were a few problems with the story that didn't work for me. Without giving spoilers, I'll just say that some ideas were presented that would later play into the psychology of how one of the main characters reacted at the end of the book. Although it served that purpose, I think it confused the overall storyline. Instead of making you sympathetic to the character, it made you think, This author is trying too hard to add a little Dan Brown to it.
I perso...more
I perso...more
It could be that I was trying to read this book in the car while others were talking but I found it hugely confusing. Perhaps if I started reading it again it may be better but half way through I still wasn't enjoying the writing. Maybe I will try again another time.
Max adds a great deal of fact into this intertwining tales of gay nazi skinheads, the occult and the split in the far right in the lat 70's, will definitely getting you googling for more info on some of the characters in the book.
fascinating topic and concept. it just dragged too much towards the end to keep me interested.
Not my cup of tea.
I judged a book by its cover and paid the price (£7.99)
I judged a book by its cover and paid the price (£7.99)
I read the dust jacket of this book in a Heathrow shop a year or so back and it caught my interest. After finally grabbing a copy, I will say I was a bit disappointed. While it contained engaging content with sequences of fine writing, I nevertheless found our protagonists less than compelling and saddled with a lackluster ending. Still, an author to watch.
Though well-researched, I have to say that I found that this story went on a bit too long. At some point in the nearly 400 pages, I think I ended up losing interest but did want to finish it. The end was quite touching but the story took awhile to get there.
Slow going but much less confronting than initial impression. I'm enjoying it.
interesting.. kind of dark and dangerous.
Jun 14, 2013
Clayborn
marked it as to-read
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Max Schaefer studied at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. Children of the Sun is his first novel.
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