Nor is there any mention that some people of all ages live to regret their transition and end up detransitioning, some having already gone through irreversible physical changes. His experiences at school, combined with the fact that homosexuality wasn’t decriminalised until Boyne was in his third year of university and that, by that time, the Aids crisis was in full spate, feel like so much to contend with that self-reproach is simply too cruel. In other parts of his life, after all, Boyne seems like a measure of success: not only in career terms, but in his closeness to family and friends and in his enjoyment of his daily life. He appears simultaneously concerned, bemused and angered by online trolls, reckoning that at the heart of their behaviour is need. It talked about the complex issues surrounding it, acceptance, and difficulties, while also being an easy, upbeat read.

You were right on trans issues, author tells Father Ted

Many have taken offence at the novel’s title – which, although written from the perspective of a confused child attached to the idea of his “brother” as a boy, can be interpreted as misgendering its trans subject. And his backlist, which includes the bestselling YA novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, will soon be joined by a new novel for adults, The Echo Chamber. I’m simply not going to put up with this kind of nonsense from cowards who hide behind keyboards and feel they can scream abuse at people and that it has no consequences.Martin also criticised Boyne for “misgendering” in his original article and rebuked his assertion that “there is no safe place for people to debate” trans topics “without being branded an enemy”. This means a temporary pause to our print publication and live events and so now more than ever we need your help to continue providing this community resource digitally. Is ‘Jessica’ going to someday crush some young woman’s dreams of sporting success by displacing her in a women’s football team? Boyne explains that he wanted to explore the kind of behaviour that his Twitter harasser exemplified and to understand his own reaction to it.

back at critics of transgender novel John Boyne hits back at critics of transgender novel

In a statement to The Bookseller he said: “I am not Sam, and do not condone his behaviour or agree with his stance at the beginning of the book. His brother, Jason, has adored him since day dot, is the captain of the football/soccer team, is very popular, and the reason why Sam is only teased and not bullied. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report.In contrast, it takes no effort to work out what John Boyne has to say but, alas, the mechanism used to deliver the message are one-dimensional characters mouthing improbable dialogue in implausible situations.

John Boyne: ‘People were criticising my book when they hadn’t John Boyne: ‘People were criticising my book when they hadn’t

In February 2021, former teacher and rugby coach John McClean, now 76, was convicted of abusing 23 boys at Terenure College, a fee-paying Dublin school run by a Carmelite trusteeship, between 1973 and 1990; he was sentenced to eight years in prison. I had no problem teaching my children to read pre-school or in nurturing their love of reading fiction.

The only glimpses we get of Jessica’s take on all of this are pithy, generic quotes that seem designed to encapsulate the “trans struggle” (“I’ve always felt this way.