Home After Dark

"Small's forte lies in the silent, cinematic montage, where each image echoes with Russell's loneliness. It's a hauntingly harsh coming-of-age tale." Siobhan Murphy, The Times

Wildly kaleidoscopic and furiously cinematic, Home After Dark is a literary tour-de-force that renders the brutality of adolescence in the so-called nostalgic 1950s, evoking classics such as The Lord of the Flies. Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to California in search of a dream. Forced to fend for himself, Russell struggles to survive in Marshfield, a dilapidated town haunted by a sadistic animal killer and a ring of malicious boys who bully Russell for being queer . Rescued from his booze-swilling father by Wen and Jian Mah, a Chinese immigrant couple who long for a child, Russell betrays them by running away with their restaurant's proceeds. Told through thousands of spliced images, Home After Dark is a new form of literature, a shocking graphic interpretation of cinema verité.