Beverley Cottrell had a dream life: a prestigious job, a beautiful
husband and baby boy. This is stolen from her one winter afternoon when
her son Malakay is kidnapped from a parked car. Despite a media
campaign, a full police investigation, and the offer of a reward,
Malakay is never found. Beverley's marriage soon dissolves and her
husband immigrates from England to the U.S. with a new wife.
Beverley gives up her job, , sells the house, and moves from the
leafy suburbs to the inner city to reside in a west London housing
project. She cocoons herself in grief, growing more isolated with each
passing year. After two decades she gives up any hope of finding her
son. She teaches children who have been expelled from school in the
local community center, bright kids thrown on society's scrap heap.
Beverley starts to believe she has finally pieced her life
together--until a young man starts appearing wherever she goes. Beverley
is convinced that he's stalking her. One dark evening the stalker gets
past her security door and calls through her letterbox. He tells her not
to be scared. He says that he is Malakay, her son.
The Gospel According to Cane is a novel about inner-city youth in
contemporary London. It's a meditation on pain and loss, the burden of
heritage, and how the past can blur the present. It's about trust and
the perceived lack of trust, disillusion, and its consequences. A world
where everyone is the victim, and no one is to blame.
