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New Boy

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About this listen

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of New Boy by Tracy Chevalier, read by Prentice Onayemi.

'O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back.'

Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day – so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again.

The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s’ suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practise a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. Watching over the shoulders of four 11-year-olds – Osei, Dee, Ian and his reluctant girlfriend Mimi – Tracy Chevalier's powerful drama of friends torn apart by jealousy, bullying and betrayal will leave you reeling.

 African American Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

High school, with its crushes, insecurities and politics, works as the perfect backdrop to Shakespeare's original plot... New Boy, with its angsty teenagers, racial frictions and a magnificently fleshed out antagonist, is a tense and tight read... It can be read in a single afternoon and it really is a heady rollercoaster of emotions, right to the breathless and shocking last line (Tanya Sweeney)
This is a compact and intense read full of twists, turns and intrigue. The fast-moving shifting allegiances and rivalries that dominate the playground provide a backdrop full of heightened emotion that cleverly reflects the atmosphere of the original play (Mernie Gilmore)
Chevalier is at her best when describing the tenderness of young love or conveying the inner thoughts of her protagonists ... Chevalier deftly and succinctly gives [her characters] all more of a backstory than Shakespeare ever allowed ... transposing this story to the playground makes absolute sense. It is of interest as an exercise in illustrating the universality of the original, and works equally well as a standalone piece which tells of a tightly wound, intimately imagined situation hurtling towards inevitable tragedy (Kirsty McLuckie)
What Chevalier has done is recast the play to illuminate the peculiar trials of our era... a fascinating exercise ... In Chevalier's handling, the insidious manipulations of Othello translate smoothly to the dynamics of a sixth-grade playground, with all its skinned-knee passions and hop-scotch rules ... How Chevalier renders Iago's scheme into the terms of a modern-day playground provides some wicked delight. She's immensely inventive about it all (Ron Charles)
Chevalier’s modern interpretation of Othello deftly explores race relations in the schoolyard in 1970s suburban Washington, and captures how it feels to be an outsider (Anita Sethi)
Othello as a Seventies schoolyard drama? Yes, it works marvellously. The emotions of emerging adolescence are a potent brew, with friendships, rivalries, budding sexuality, and the desire to fit in combining unflinchingly with the racism of the teachers (and some of the pupils). This is an evocative retelling of Shakespeare, and his characters’ interactions and motivations fit surprisingly well into the brutal world of childhood (Joanne Harris)
Powerful and intriguing (Deidre O'Brien)
To add urgency to an everyday story of high-school bullying, [Chevalier] compresses the action into the cycle of a school day. It's a clever strategy, executed with typical aplomb by the gifted author of Girl With a Pearl Earring... Her New Boy is an often inspired riff on adolescence and alienation (Robert McCrum)
All stars
Most relevant
A thoroughly believable chilling story. It takes place in an American primary school but it could apply to any minority child in the mix that is most schools. Well crafted & read.

Manipulation in a primary school.

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Beautifully illustrated, a very simple story beautifully told. When I was a child in school , I never saw people by the colour , they just my friends.

Captivating to the end.

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Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I thought the setting was inspired. Beyond mere superlatives and watery qualifiers. The organised chaos of the school playground. Take me home mama. The hierarchies of boys - the fast changing relationships of girls. Climbing frames and kickball. Jump ropes and double dutch. Who can twirl; who can jump. Who's in - who's out. Kid world to the fore. Adult world as background. Kudos to Tracy Chevalier and kudos to Prentice Onayemi for keeping it real. I laughed and cried the whole time I listened owing to the book's setting. I'm going to do it. I'll shove in a superlative. Genius.

Any additional comments?

Every book published in the Hogarth Shakespeare series has been memorable and for all the right reasons. Character,challenges, setting, pace, resolution, a ha moments, fun, 'good words' and above all - soul satisfying. I could go on. For me New Boy surpassed the others for its setting and young characters. Someone picked a inspirational narrator.

For the editors of the series it is my profound hope that Julius Caesar - which has one of the greatest boardroom scenes in all literature (Act IV scene I) - will also be adapted.

Hogarth Shakespeare: The hits just keep on comin'

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Together with remarkable creatures this is probably my favourite book of the 7 by Chevalier I hBe listened to. Fast paced and well performed it is very suspenseful and the references to Othello are there but cleverly disguised. Shame it was so short.

Very enjoyable

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The characterisation, general tone and setting all worked for me but I needed more to happen. The plot could have been developed further with more domestic details for the main characters, especially ’O’.
I can’t write what I want to say about the concluding scenes as this would spoil the book for others but for me it didn’t ring true. What I’d learnt about the characters involved did not make the ending feasible.
As for TC’s depiction of adolescence;she does a good job and I am reminded of what a complicated yet simple, happy, yet sad and lonely yet social time of life it is.

I wanted more to happen

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