The Boy From the Basement

by Susan Shaw Narrated by Danny Gerard

Overview

For Charlie, the cold, dark basement is home. Father has kept him locked in there as punishment. Charlie doesn't intend to leave, but when he is accidentally thrust outside, he awakens to the alien surroundings of a world to which he's never before been exposed. Though haunted by hallucinations, fear of the basement, and his father's rage, Charlie must find a way to survive in his new world. He has escaped his past, but his journey has just begun.

Editorial Reviews

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Twelve-year-old Charlie is locked in his parents' basement. Not for an hour, not for a day, but for years. This "punishment" has left him starving, cold, and mildly hallucinatory, as he continues his existence in the dark, terrified of "Father." Tragically, it's the only home Charlie has ever known.

One night, everything changes as Charlie accidentally locks himself outside. Fearing punishment, he flees in terror. But as Charlie's true journey to freedom begins, he is haunted by the omniscient, raging presence of Father and menacing visions of "the spider."

Shaw's writing is seamless. Narrated entirely by Charlie, there is no comforting past tense in this novel. With authenticity, immediacy, and a palpable sense of danger, Charlie's world becomes the reader's own - a feverish nightmare provoking a profound emotional response.

Waking up to find himself in the care of medical professionals, Charlie's eyes open to wonder at the world around him. His first taste of unconditional love is heartrendingly beautiful and his attention to the ordinary, everyday things we take for granted will fill readers' eyes with tears. Snow, laughter, a father's caress, running free, outside.

Ultimately, Charlie is faced with a choice. Will he choose the liberty of the unknown or the "safety" of familiarity? The Boy from the Basement is an extraordinary tale of recovery, of a child's unrelenting loyalty in the face of hideous betrayal and abuse, and of the healing, transformative power of love. Read it and weep. We did. (Holiday 2004 Selection)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7-Charlie's father has banished him to a dark cellar as punishment for some small transgression, and the boy sneaks upstairs at night while his parents sleep, desperately searching the kitchen for food and going outdoors to relieve himself. After he accidentally locks himself out, he wanders until he collapses, then awakens in a hospital. There, the extent of his deprivation and the resulting damage become clear. He doesn't know his last name or age, he has never heard of Thanksgiving or soccer, he has hallucinations about a menacing spider, and he cannot imagine going into the frightening world of the outdoors. Focusing on Charlie's internal thought processes, the action is primarily psychological. As the boy works with a psychiatrist and begins to trust his foster family, he grows to the point of being able to disagree with his controlling and warped father. However, as the book progresses, it loses tension and becomes repetitive. If he hasn't heard of Halloween or Thanksgiving, can it be much of a surprise that he hasn't seen a Christmas tree either? The intriguing premise can't quite compensate for the average writing and plotting. Elaine Marie Alphin's Counterfeit Son (Harcourt, 2000) and Malachy Doyle's Georgie (Bloomsbury, 2002) provide far more intense pictures of surviving psychological trauma.-Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Charlie, 12, can't read and doesn't even know his last name. He does know he's being punished because he's bad. Father (who is plainly psychotic) keeps Charlie locked in the basement, allowing him to scavenge for food only at night; his frightened mother does nothing to help. One night he steps outside briefly, and the wind blows the door shut behind him. Terrified, he runs into the street, where he's found and hospitalized. Because he has never gone to school, he knows nothing of the simplest things like Halloween and is convinced that he's in danger if he goes outside. His struggle to understand his new life in a loving home and his terror of an imaginary, enormous spider that represents his father are more powerful, since it's Charlie who tells the story. Shaw's simple language and sentence structure effectively contribute to the realism of her psychological tale, even as she avoids a too-vivid description of physical abuse. This affecting, ultimately uplifting examination of a boy's recovery from extreme child abuse is a stunner and certain to attract readers. (Fiction. 12+)

From the Publisher

"Shaw’s simple language and sentence structure effectively contribute to the realism of her psychological tale….This affecting, ultimately uplifting examination of a boy’s recovery from extreme child abuse is a stunner and certain to attract readers."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169151800
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

The staircase creaks again. A couple of words I don't understand rumble to Mother as Father walks through the dining room. A soft answer from her, the scuff of footsteps from the carpet to the kitchen tiles, and Father's at his desk. Right on the other side of the door at the top of the basement steps. An invisible but uncuttable line attached to him pulls on my chest. I crawl up the steps and touch the door. He must know I'm here.

I want to call him. Father! Do you feel me like I feel you? Is it hard for you to work knowing there's only a door between us? You would see me if you opened it. True and real. You could hear me breathe like I hear you -- if you tried. Is it hard not to open the door and say, "Charlie, come on up!"?

It has to be as hard for him as it is for me. So I don't call. I crawl down again -- silently. I have to wait until he says it's time. That's what he told me. I have learned to believe what he says.

I sit back on the floor, lean against the bottom step. The spider on the ceiling above me spins her web. How she takes her time! After all, why hurry? She's not going anywhere. As long as she doesn't weave a web to catch me -- that idea always lurks in the back of my mind. On my good days, I know I'm too big for her to want, but still I worry. As long as she has smaller things to catch, I'm all right.

She swells up while I look, then flattens down again so I can hardly see her. How did she do that? I watch to see if she'll do it again, but she doesn't. Then right as I turn my head, I see her puff up once more out of the corner of my eye. When I turn my head, though, it's like nothing happened. The spider taunts me with her sameness. I watch a long time this time, but she doesn't move at all.

I hear the leaves shifting under the wind, losing myself in the rolling, shhshhing sound.

I pick up my pencils from behind the steps. Mother sticks them under the door once in a while. Sharpens them for me sometimes. There's paper behind the steps, too -- old computer paper left by the people who lived here before. Stacks of it.

I feel the ridges in the wood of a pencil, touch the marks stamped in the yellow paint, let the blackness transfer from the point and stain my fingertips. Then I slide a paper into a patch of sunlight trapped by the window well and draw. I've drawn everything in the basement over and over -- the furnace, the water heater, the old red wagon with two wheels missing, and the gray clothesline still dotted with clothespins. All from the people who lived here before us.

I feel myself at the kitchen table when I draw, and it's the way things used to be. I'm there. Mother and Father work, and I draw -- there. But when the drawing ends, the table goes, and I am still, still here.

Today, I draw random lines without thinking too much about what it is. Like the spider, I'm in no hurry. There's plenty of time.

But right now, I don't feel like drawing. I'm tired of the endless stretch of time. I've been down here so long, and I don't feel real good. When is Father going to let me upstairs again? When will my punishment be over?

Was what I did this bad?

I drop my pencil and roll onto my back. I'm sick of drawing.

The spider's up on the ceiling, as always. Dark red with black markings like two bent fingers facing each other. And a bunch of black legs busy, always busy. The spider's head turns to look down. Father's face bulges out at me. I blink. No. It's only the spider. Father's upstairs, of course. What made my eyes play that trick?

After I lie here for a while, I begin to shiver. I'm colder suddenly. I pull the towel around me. Then I'm too hot, sweating, even. I blot my sweat with the towel, but that takes too much energy. So I just sweat, feeling the gathering liquid drip onto the floor. I'm cold again.

What's happening? I can't be sick. Can't. There's no extra energy for that. Only for just making it through the day.

Drowsiness creeps over me, and my body feels heavy, ready to sink into the floor. I gladly give in to sleep, the sweetest time taker. . . .

I wake up, holding onto the shield of sleep until I can no longer pretend. I'm still sick, and the presence of the spider and her web is strong. She's going to get me, and I'm afraid, so afraid.

Sick with a terrible thirst, and scared, scared.

Calm, Charlie -- stay calm. No energy to be upset. Don't have any to waste.

I lie still and wait. Upstairs, a clock chimes. I count four. Count five. Count six.

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