Luke's mum is dead. He finds himself in a scruffy northern hill town, with a near silent father, who he fears might be trying to drink himself to death. Then he meets Jon.
Jon is massively strange. He wears 1950s clothes, has a side-parting and a twitch. The kids at school call him 'Slackjaw'. When Luke discovers his secret, Jon changes his life in more ways than he can imagine.
Luke and Jon is a coming of age novel about family, bereavement and how lives can change forever in a single second. Written with great power, warmth and humour, it signals a hugely engaging and original new voice. Compelling and emotionally acute, it is a unique debut.
“It’s the sort of novel I’m always hoping to find. It’s odd, heartfelt, romantic, sad, and most of all honest. When you read it you feel Williams wrote this one becuase he had to, and those for me are always the best novels.”
“The kind of book that stays in the mind way past the final page…it has the feel of something distilled, pared down, stripped of fat and frills. It is very, very good.”
“It’s a hell of a thing to accuse a new writer of wisdom, but that’s what Robert Williams’ first novel has: a warm, dead-to-rights understanding of the human heart, expressed in prose as clear as a glass of water. I’d predict great things for him, but I think that they’ve already begun.”
Winner of a Betty Trask Award
Shortlisted for the Premio Orbil Award
Shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award
Nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award