Heartland

by NeilCross (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  When he was five, Neil's mother walked out of the family home. Two years later she returned with a new man; Derek Cross. His new stepfather prided himself on being an exemplary parent, kind, patient, never too tired to read him stories. Neil loved him. Yet underneath lurked another Derek Cross - a monster: conman, adulterer, liar, racist and a cold-hearted manipulator.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  When Neil Cross was five years old, his mother left him. No note, no phone call, just an empty house and a brow-beaten father. Two years later, she came back for her son. She was not alone. Neil's new step-father was a South-African white supremacist. He was a serial adulterer, a thief, a con man, a racist and a liar. And in many ways, he was the perfect father. In their backstreet Edinburgh slum, Derek Cross introduced Neil to Tom Sawyer, Kidnapped, and The Three Musketeers, and whilst his step-son battled violent anti-English racism everyday in the playground, Derek discovered a new way to isolate his family; he became a Mormon Bishop in the Church of the Latter Day Saints. This is a story about being raised a racist and an outsider - and overcoming it; about family and step-family; about class and religion; and about how resentment breeds violence. And it's about what, in the end, the love of books can do for you.