Growing "up" can be hard

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

Coming of age, hypocrisy of the "middle class" revisited...hard to believe this is her first novel. The "protagonist" is a very sympathetic character...a victim on many levels. The novel has all the "themes" self-mutilation (albeit a male), abusive husband and father, seductive step-mother, the "easy" older woman, and every character drinks like a fish (such a strange cliche do fishes drink?).
Abandonment-physical by biological mom (also a serious drinker) did she drown or did she commit suicide. Cold father who spends all his time at work and sends the son off to boarding school...Being abandoned the flip side of being an outcast? Another them is parents not being parents...
It is great book