The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

Written in 2015 and the recent winner of the Miles Franklin award, some of us described reading this novel as like being fed through a meat mincer backwards. It is excruciatingly raw and deals with family love and domestic abuse in equal measure, following a bleak plot depicting a downward spiral of gut wrenchingly awful events.

One member thought the character of the little boy, Jimmy Flick, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, was beautifully and originally drawn with his apparent hypersensitive understanding of how we are all threaded together.

The descriptions of Jimmy’s home and homelife are also well written, including details of the patently inadequate diet and home life with lack of adequate stimulation (the little boy’s treasured reading materials are the manuals of the appliances in the house).

The eye of the sheep is referred to by Jimmy a number of times and is apparently conjured up during sessions of counting sheep with his mother to calm himself and get to sleep. It represents, perhaps, a dimly understood life force, rather than something of a spiritual nature.

Some members could not get past the hopeless mother and the alcoholic violent father and couldn't finish the book.

For those who continued, some of us were a bit concerned that the education system, even back in the 1980s when the book is thought to be set, could have failed Jimmy in the way that is depicted. They felt that his absence from school (however much of a relief to the teachers incapable of managing his behaviour) would nonetheless have been picked up by the authorities and checked on. The signs of physical abuse of mother and son would also surely have been reported by the doctor to the police. But perhaps not.

Other members were not convinced that Jimmy could act independently in the way that he did later in the story, to leave his foster carers to find his father, given his apparent level of disability. The act of walking to the sea in order to drown himself was similarly seen as stretching credibility.

Another was annoyed that when Dad was away from Mum with Jimmy on holiday, everything seemed pretty much hunky dory, as if Jimmy’s behaviour and the father’s drinking problem could be sheeted home to the mother.

The story may have been stronger if based on an actual case history. At any rate, if you want to feel wrung out like an emotional dishrag this is the book for you.

At the end, some of us wondered what the point of reading the book was, since hopefully things have improved for children like Jimmy with our much greater understanding of Asperger’s and autism these days (not to mention better treatment for asthma patients like Jimmy’s Mum). However, perhaps this is naive, because, without ready funds, remedies like special schools, special teachers and proper medication may not be within easy reach. And with the current level of unemployment in manufacturing and mining some low income families are certainly doing it very tough indeed.

This is Sofie Laguna’s second novel for adults. Her first, released in 2008, was One Foot Wrong which was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. She has published many books for young people and is also a playwright and was an actor. She has been published in the US and the UK and in translation throughout Europe and Asia.

Other books which draw attention to various issues around the tragic plight of children worth reading (bring your tissues) include:

• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes Galloping Foxley by Roald Dahl
• The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
• Carrie by Stephen King
• The Ugly Duckling/The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson (ok, ok, I’ll stop there.)

Happy reading!