A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

Barry Hines
A Kestrel for a Knave
Softcover, Published in 1979, origin. published 1969
160 pages
Penguin Books
Very used condition

A cornerstone in the kitchen sink realism movement and acclaimed novel with scores of silver linings.

The banal and bleak mining town of Barnsley, a tough and cheerless place to grow up. Billy Casper, Yorkshire youth and troublemaker is written off as a failure and destined for a job in the pits. But Casper finds a solitary escape in a wild hawk he dutifully names, Kes’. The at-risk kid finally finds love and passion in discovering skills for taming the silent, powerful bird yet the tough world always has a way of seeping in.

Watch the movie, read the book, or vice-versa; Hines’s novel continues to resonate with the working class, the delicate and kind and generational teenagers facing dissonant, destructive homes.