Jean
Madeleine Dunnigan
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From the publisher
A Guardian Book of the Day
A debut to look out for in 2026 for the Guardian, Stylist and Independent
Set over one hot summer, a startlingly assured debut about the kinds of love that break us and make us whole.
One afternoon in 1976, teenagers Jean and Tom share an almost imperceptible look across the grounds of Compton Manor, a boarding school for boys with problems. Their gaze marks a secret intimacy, one defined as much by violence as by friendship and desire. As the boys’ connection deepens, so too does the risk that surrounds it. Jean – son of a single mother, Jewish, on a scholarship, forever an outsider – wonders whether the relationship might offer a way out of a life marked by alienation. But what if the only true path to freedom is to disappear altogether?
Spellbinding and evocative, Jean is a meditative narrative of loss and escape distilled into the heartrending story of an intense and dangerous adolescent love.
‘A coming-of-age novel which conveys with almost unbearable tension the adolescent tangle of certainty and confusion, the ferocity of love and hate, its alienation and anger. Yet Dunnigan achieves this with remarkable grace and in prose that flexes with sinewy elegance.’ Nigella Lawson
‘This debut novel feels different . . . [and will] speak to anyone who can remember how glorious – and dangerous – it once felt to find yourself in possession of a fully functioning heart.’ Neil Bartlett, Guardian Book of the Day