Odo Hirsch always writes an intriguing novel. His books challenge the reader to think and to look close to home to see the stories and the issues in real life.

Hirsch realises that we face moral choices everyday, especially in how we treat the people around us. So his characters and their stories are about everyday life, and its decisions. They do not save the universe or threaten world peace – they live their own lives. But within those lives, they face issues and choices as major (for them) as any Darth Vader.

Slaughterboy is set in medieval Germany, in an unnamed town during unnumbered years. We meet Conrad as an orphan, discovered in a bundle of rags when a nameless woman starves to death. We follow his life as he grows to adulthood at the mercy of the town authorities, the charity (or lack) of others, and the twists of fate. Hunger rules his life, avoiding it or surviving it. As orphan, street kid, slaughterman’s apprentice, doctor’s assistant and finally thief, he learns all the tricks that others use to keep him down and themselves up.

What he never learns (and rarely encounters) are two traits at the heart of humanity: love and morality. When he steals, he simply sees it as filling his empty stomach. When he leaves companions to suffer, it is so he can survive. He sees no right or wrong in it, just one more step away from the Hunger lurking behind him.

Like Camus’ Outsider, he feels no guilt, remorse, or pity. He just does what he needs to do. But, also like the Outsider, he observes the others showing love or care or attachment, and he wonders why they do it.

The story could end up pretty bleak and heavily philosophical but it is the measure of Hirsch’s skill that he makes us care about Conrad and worry about what might happen to him next. He is not evil, just amoral, and there are plenty of immoral characters around him. They fight just as fiercely to survive but they (especially the rich and powerful) know what they are doing to others.

Slaughterboy leaves it to the reader to judge Conrad and his world. It is very real, and has strong echoes in ours. If the events of Slaughterboy are not typical of our lives, the choices Conrad faces certainly are.
 

Other books by this author:
Yoss (Allen & Unwin 2001)
Antonio S. and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman (Allen & Unwin 1997)
Bartlett and the Ice Voyage (Allen & Unwin 1999)
Hazel Green (Allen & Unwin 1999)
Bartlett and the City of Flames (Allen & Unwin 2000)
Something's Fishy, Hazel Green (Allen & Unwin 2000)
Have Courage, Hazel Green! (Allen & Unwin 2001)
Think Smart, Hazel Green (Allen & Unwin, 2003)
Frankel Mouse (Allen & Unwin 2000) 
Frankel Mouse and the Bestish Lair (Allen & Unwin 2002)
Pincus Corbett's Strange Adventure (Allen & Unwin 2002) 
Bartlett and the Island of Kings (Allen & Unwin, 2003)
Bartlett and the Forest of Plenty (Allen & Unwin, 2004)
 

Review by David Beagley

© 2005 David Beagley