The Boy in the Field

Summary (from the publisher): One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy’s life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. Matthew, the oldest, becomes obsessed with tracking down the assailant, secretly searching the local town with the victim’s brother. Zoe wanders the streets of Oxford, looking at men, and one of them, a visiting American graduate student, looks back. Duncan, the youngest, who has seldom thought about being adopted, suddenly decides he wants to find his birth mother. Overshadowing all three is the awareness that something is amiss in their parents’ marriage. Over the course of the autumn, as each of the siblings confronts the complications and contradictions of their approaching adulthood, they find themselves at once drawn together and driven apart.

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this novel from HarperCollins. 

One afternoon in 1999, siblings Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan are walking home from school when they find a boy lying in a field, unconscious and bleeding. While the boy is saved, each of the siblings lives are changed in the aftermath of the violent event. Matthew becomes obsessed with trying to track down the person responsible. Zoe becomes involved in a relationship with a more experienced man. And Duncan suddenly has a desire to track down his birth mother. All three are increasingly aware of a rift in their parent's marriage, which casts yet another shadow on the household. 

One experience shared by three siblings has a vastly different impact on each of them. Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan each react differently to the event, which sends the whole family on a different trajectory. Analyzing the impact of one chance encounter on the actions of the main characters is the crux of this novel. In a very real sense, discovering the unconscious boy hurdles the children faster along to adulthood, as they all are forced to confront very adult concepts over the coming months. 

The Boy in the Field is an intriguing psychological drama that explores the impact of violent crime on those within the periphery of the event. In some ways, however, the novel feels disjointed, with little connection back to the violent crime. It seemed like a stretch to tie much of the siblings' behavior back to the boy in the field. An interesting premise with introspective characters that didn't quite pan out on its potential. 

Stars: 3