The Outside Boy

Jeanine Cummins
4.22
11,191 ratings 1,064 reviews
Ireland, 1959: Young Christy Hurley is a Pavee gypsy, traveling with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. Christy carries with him a burden of guilt as well, haunted by the story of his mother's death in childbirth. The peripatetic life is the only one Christy has ever known, but when his grandfather dies, everything changes. His father decides to settle down temporarily in a town where Christy and his cousin can attend mass and receive proper schooling. But they are still treated as outsiders. As Christy's exposure to a different life causes him to question who he is and where he belongs, the answer may lie with an old newspaper photograph and a long-buried family secret that could change his life forever...
Genres: FictionHistorical FictionBook ClubIrelandAudiobookComing Of AgeIrish LiteratureAdultYoung AdultAdult Fiction
384 Pages

Community Reviews:

5 star
4841 (43%)
4 star
4402 (39%)
3 star
1619 (14%)
2 star
245 (2%)
1 star
84 (1%)

Readers also enjoyed

Other books by Jeanine Cummins

Lists with this book

The Outside Boy
Gypsy Boy
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey
Gypsies
102 books30 voters
2003 - Thanks for the Vodka
Mine Till Midnight
Roma: Charlie and Poppy
Romani Characters in Fiction
64 books34 voters
The Lightning Queen
The Diddakoi
Son of Black Beauty
Gypsy/Romany Reads
29 books8 voters
The Golden Compass
The Name of the Wind
The Riddle
The Traveling People
76 books18 voters