Monday Rent Boy

FINALIST FOR THE PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTION

CANADIAN BOOK CLUB AWARD WINNER

WORD GUILD AWARDS BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

In the mid-1980s Somerset countryside, two brilliant, misfit teenagers forge a bond that defies their harsh reality.

Arthur Barnes, a dreamer who finds sanctuary in literature, and Ernie Castlefrank, a mathematical prodigy with a fierce empathy for animals, are endearing outcasts whose fierce loyalty becomes their only armor against a world that refuses to protect them.

Guided by a radical independent bookseller Marina Phillips, Arthur learns to survive by looking forward. But Ernie, unable to ignore the sinister patterns he witnesses afflicting vulnerable children, dares to expose a hidden network of exploitation. When the authorities rebuff him and he vanishes without a trace, Arthur is left to bear the crushing weight of his own silence.

Decades later, Arthur has built a fragile adulthood on the foundations of forgetting. But as the digital age lifts the veil on long-buried crimes, the unanswered questions surrounding Ernie’s disappearance demand an answer. With Marina by his side, Arthur discovers a labyrinthine investigation that bridges the analog past with the dark architecture of modern trafficking and institutional complicity.

What unfolds is far more than a missing-person case. It is a visceral excavation of how trauma reverberates across generations, how systems designed to protect us choose to look away, and how the echoes of a single childhood friendship can alter the trajectory of a life.

Monday Rent Boy is unflinching in its gaze at humanity's darkest impulses, yet it is ultimately a celebration of resilience. It is a story about the radical act of speaking up, the redemptive power of chosen family, and the quiet courage it takes to reclaim your voice after decades of silence.