Hallam Foe

Peter Jinks

Hallam Foe is lonely, confused and unhappy. He spends all his time in his treehouse and discovers that watching people is fascinating. The seventeen year old Hallam is weird. Yet five years later after starting a new life in Edinburgh, I felt an understanding and sympathy for him.

Extract

Occasionally, Hallam wondered if he might be slightly mad. But he knew that he was not, chiefly because he possessed doubts. What, he had asked himself a hundred times, if these rules were merely the intellectual dressing to help himself feel more comfortable about his vice? But, he answered himself, at least it was a victimless vice. It was not invasive; besides, he paid for his pleasure with risk, although of course this soon became part of the pleasure itself.

Parallels