(Found) Help Finding: Novel Written Phonetically, POV of young boy

[jacksimmons]

A while ago I started reading a preview of this book online.

The prose was written phonetically, from the POV of a very young boy who I am pretty sure had been locked away indoors for his whole life. It was quite hard to read but also very engaging because of this phonetic style. (Like this: i lyk the luk of thu sun cumming in thru thu windo.)

I think the crux of the story was that this boy belonged to some sort of religious cult.

I believe it was a bestseller or quite popular so hopefully someone will know.

Been driving me crazy so any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[PaulMmn]

One of the Mercedes Lackey novels? Any involvement with demons, elves, or other mystical creatures? One of her stories involved a religious cult, and one of the main characters was the son of the leader. Books by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon [novels of the Serrated Edge]

 

[sueelleker]

No cult involved, but could you be thinking of "Flowers for Algernon"? The male is mentally handicapped, and undergoes a radical procedure to increase his mentality. There's a funny bit where he's learning about punctuation, and put commas etc in all the wrong places. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...for_Algernon&usg=AOvVaw2bwq04EOVZZMT9KdYIQUFg

 

[Toby Frost]

The phonetics thing makes me think of Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, but the rest of the details don't fit that book. Any idea what decade it was from?

 

[Danny McG]

I might have read it, I'm trying to remember.
Was he aware of the world outside the House? ( I think that's how it was mentioned in the story, always capitalised)
The only person he ever had any dealings with was 'Father' and Father always warned him to never try to go outside the House.

 

[PaulMmn]

No cult involved, but could you be thinking of "Flowers for Algernon"? The male is mentally handicapped, and undergoes a radical procedure to increase his mentality. There's a funny bit where he's learning about punctuation, and put commas etc in all the wrong places. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjMkcOUt-f8AhUSQ0EAHci3CN8QFnoECCEQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon&usg=AOvVaw2bwq04EOVZZMT9KdYIQUFg

Although definitely not related to the original request, your mention of "Flowers for Algernon" reminded me of Isaac Asimov's story "The Ugly Little Boy." In Asimov's story a neanderthal boy is time-scooped to a laboratory, and a nurse is hired to care for him... The boy shows definite signs of intelligence, but only the nurse seems to recognize them. The 'scientists' regard him as little more than an animal.

 

[jacksimmons]

A while ago I started reading a preview of this book online.

The prose was written phonetically, from the POV of a very young boy who I am pretty sure had been locked away indoors for his whole life. It was quite hard to read but also very engaging because of this phonetic style. (Like this: i lyk the luk of the sun cumming in thru thu windo.)

I think the crux of the star was that this boy belonged to some sort of religious cult.

I believe it was a bestseller or quite popular so hopefully someone will know.

Been driving me crazy so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I don’t think it’s any of these. I should mention that I don’t think it was an out and out sci fi novel. I didn’t read too far into it (I really wanna find it so I can read it), but I think it may have been ‘realistic’ fiction. It was also from relatively recently, pretty sure it was post 2000.

 

[Ravensquawk]

How about another story that it isn't?
'Cause, you know, we'll circle in on it eventually.
It reminded me of "Algernon" too.

In "Bulkhead" by Theodore Sturgeon, the astronaut-spacer isolated on a long-haul solo trip in a very small space-can is surprised by hearing a whimpering child, probably a very young boy, on the other side of the bulkhead.

A bulkhead he can't get through. He just has to talk with the child, go nuts with its crying and inane talk. Near the end of the crazymaking trip he hates the kid so much he starts gouging through the metal of the bulkhead to get at him.* Fortunately he makes some measure of peace with the kid before landing and being around people and medics again.

Finds out he was tinkered with so that the "kid" was his own sub-vocalizations -- he was unknowingly conversing with his own insecure "inner child", as it were.
* And finds out that on the other side of the bulkhead was a tank full of hydrazine.

This was done to qualify or disqualify spacers as emotionally fit for long-haul isolation in the ships they controlled.

Don't remember more details because I haven't read it since the 1980s, when I was less repulsed by Sturgeon's sexism. (And stories like, to quote a review I just read: "The ultimate effect comes off more pervy than speculative, like a disguised apologia written by an SF artist who was looking for an excuse to nail his sister")

Anyway, it isn't that story either! I get the notion that it matches Danny McG's description of a kid who has never been out of a house.

Or, based on some tenuous tendril of memory, a lighthouse.

 

[sueelleker]

The idea with "Bulkhead" was that space cadets at the age of 14, when they entered training, had the memories of their childhood blocked off; so that they could concentrate on learning. When they graduated, the bulkhead scheme was to put them back in touch with their inner child, as otherwise they wouldn't be complete people.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Doesn't really match the query but

Feersum Endjinn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A quarter of the book is told by Bascule the Teller and is written phonetically in the first person using phonetic transcription and shorthand (also evinced in the novel's title). No dialect words are used, but there are (inconsistent) hints of a Scottish and a Cockney accent.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I thought Feersum Endjinn too.

 

[OuttaInc]

Not written phonetically, but it is written from the POV of a young boy who has been locked up all his life: Room, by Emma Donohugh. Came out in 2010. Not sci-fi.

 

[jacksimmons]

Thank you for your suggestions guys it's much appreciated! Actually found a few books from this that I'm very interested in reading, notably Room and Riddley Walker.

Just to put a cap on this, the book was The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond.

 

[HareBrain]

Actually found a few books from this that I'm very interested in reading, notably Room and Riddley Walker.

Definitely try Riddley Walker. You'll either give up on the first page or persevere and find your perspective on writing changed for ever. I hope it's the second.

 

[Danny McG]

Definitely try Riddley Walker. You'll either give up on the first page or persevere and find your perspective on writing changed for ever. I hope it's the second.

I gave up

 

[Ravensquawk]

Thank you for your suggestions guys it's much appreciated! Actually found a few books from this that I'm very interested in reading, notably Room and Riddley Walker.

Just to put a cap on this, the book was The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond.

Oh, man, glad you came back and answered!

It was driving me a bit nutz, and now I've found a new story and learned a lot about Algernon Syndrome.