Broken

A "bold, prescient, engaging" novel about the breakdown of a British suburban community in the aftermath of a violent crime ( The Guardian). Until that fateful afternoon, Skunk Cunningham had been a normal little girl, playing on the curb in front of her house. Rick Buck­ley had been a normal geeky teen­ager, hosing off his brand-new car. Bob Oswald had been a normal sociopathic single father of five slutty daughters, charging furiously down the side­walk. Then Bob was beating Rick to a bloody pulp, right there in the Buckleys' driveway, and life on Drummond Square was never the same again. Inspired by Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, Clay's brilliantly observed and darkly funny novel follows the sudden unraveling of a sub­urban community after a single act of thoughtless cruelty. "Beautifully written." — Booklist " Broken is surprising, shocking, and cruelly funny at times. It's an unforgettable book." —Scott Helm, author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear "Clay succeeds in inciting pity even for a murderer [and his] triumph is in exploring the kindness and love that might heal and restore—and what it is to feel fully alive." — The Independent "Daniel Clay tells the truth about childhood in the modern world, and captures all the elements of a great novel: suspense, desperation, love, and death." —Amy Bryant, author of Polly "Funny and sad and moving." — The Observer