*Boy by James Hanley (Knopf, 1932)

 

Boy is the story of Arthur Fearon, a 15-year-old boy who lives with his impoverished parents in Liverpool.  They take him out of school, where he is happy and flourishing (he wants to continue his studies and become a chemist) and send him to work on the docks along with his father.  The work he is given there is miserable -- hard, dirty -- and Arthur cannot face a future working in those inhuman conditions, so he stows away on a freight ship bound for Alexandria, hiding in the coal bunker.  He is discovered there, unconscious, after three days and given a job as a seaman cleaning the ship and acting as a servant to his superiors, several of whom try to take advantage of him and all of whom treat him badly, except for two, including the Captain, who inspires him to work hard and rise up the ranks, which Fearon attempts to do.  But all his hard work is either ridiculed or ignored by the crew, who continue to taunt and abuse him.

In Alexandria his is taken by another sailor to a brothel where he contracts syphilis.  Back on the ship, as it makes its way toward Salonika, the boy is told that he is incurable and should jump overboard and kill himself.  But before he can do this he is smothered in his bed by the Captain, who "placed his greatcoat over the face of Fearon and laid all his weight upon it."

The book is engaging and Arthur is a sympathetic character but none of the other characters -- with the exception of the parents and the Captain -- are distinctly developed.  The scenes on the ship are vividly rendered, but there is a certain amount of obfuscation about sexual matters that leaves the contemporary reader wondering what, exactly, has happened.  Would an attractive boy really be able to fend off the advances of able-bodied seamen?  

An interesting but somewhat murky book with an unsatisfying ending.