Hope House
By Joe Bond
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Demon Copperhead meets Les Choristes in this tender coming-of-age story, told through the intersecting lives of a group of troubled boys in a home for ‘delinquent’ young men in the American south in the 1980s.
'A stunningly beautiful debut; a novel of life on the margins, written with style and grace, and populated with characters that stay with you long after the final page' Tom Newlands, author of Only Here, Only Now
LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION 2026 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
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They came from the streets, the sticks, and every place in between. They've stolen cars, dealt dope and hurt people. They've been hurt themselves. They’ve been labelled ‘delinquents’ and cast out from their families – if they ever had a family at all. Their futures promise prison - or worse - but for now, they've been brought together to live in an old house on a hill, and see about getting themselves - and each other - right.
Spirited, angry, confused, and misled, these are the boys of Hope House, an institution for troubled young men in 1980s Kentucky. There is Smoove, named for his distinctive walk after he was shot in both feet back home in Louisville. There’s Damico, reported for shoplifting and assault, even though that was only part of the story. There’s Bobby, who tells brave tales of adventures of coyotes but goes quiet at the thought of his father. And there’s Awol, who can’t stop running away, only to return to the place he knows best.
Deeply honest and soulful, Hope House is a novel about searching for belonging and lifting each other up; about coming of age into a society that’s already closed its doors; about lost boys who grapple with their pasts, dare to imagine different futures, and nurture the almost outrageous hope that they might just turn everything around.
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