I have never heard of James Scudamore. I was a little suspicious of the title too, suspecting that it would be a less than savoury subject matter and I was not wrong. But the front cover has a list of praiseful comments and I do like to form my own opinion on books.
English Monsters is told by Max and starts with the life that he has before he is sent to boarding school. He has a good life; his parents live abroad and when he is not with them, he stays with his grandparents and has a particularly close relationship with his grandfather, who is his hero.
He doesn’t want to go to school but, as he is getting older and his education is becoming more important, his parents think it would be a good thing for some stability and so, enrol him to go to the school, just up the road from where his grandparents live. Here, he makes some friends: Simon, who is thought of as a bit strange; Luke, who seems fearless and is confrontational with teachers; Becky Lynch, sister to Neil Lynch who shares Max’s dorm, and is his first girlfriend.
There is a lot of discussion about the teachers as well, some of them hated and some of them more well thought of. In some ways, it is what you would expect about a public boarding school in terms of corporal punishment and thwarting the rules but it also has a darker underside. When one of the teachers despised has allegations of sexual abuse levelled against him, Max re-examines his past and what he remembers of it and looks at his friends for evidence of their having been targeted.
This is a dark book in many ways and it is not for those who are sensitive as it highlights human depravities in a considered way; it is not about judging the act and its perpetrators but more a discussion of the effects an abusive incident can have. That is not to say that there is not judgement and retribution and damnation here as there is but this is not a diatribe in fiction form. It is a story about a lot of things: school; family relationships; what we can glean from behaviour and what we can’t; how we choose to deal with information and the repercussions; how abuse manifests itself.
Not easy but thought-provoking.
Scuffed Granny 