My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal was published to great acclaim in 2016, and it was one of those books I kept meaning to read but putting off. I thought the story of a boy in the 1980s care system, trying to be reunited with his baby brother who has been adopted, would be unbearably sad.
Kit de Waal grew up in Birmingham with an Irish mother and father from St Kitts, and she holds dual Irish/British citizenship. So I decided that this year’s Reading Ireland 2024 aka the Begorrathon, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books was the time to finally get to it, and I’m so glad I did!
At the start of the novel Leon is almost nine years old and living with his mum Carol, with his father absent in prison. Carol’s just had a baby, Jake, who has blonde hair and blue eyes, unlike Leon who is mixed race. Leon is devoted to his younger sibling, and tries to take care of him as best he can.
“After a few weeks, Carol says Leon can’t go to school because it’s too wet and rainy. That means Leon can play all day and put the television on and make toast if he’s hungry. Carol leaves him in charge when she goes to the phone box and when she comes back she’s out of breath and asks him if the baby’s alright. Leon would never let anything happen to the baby so she worries for nothing.”
A child’s point of view is hard to get right but I thought de Waal created a really authentic voice for Leon (if you look at her Wiki page you’ll see her lifetime of experience that led to her writing this novel.) Leon is old beyond his years, but there is still so much he doesn’t understand.
“He hopes that Jake won’t grow up to be like his dad and say dangerous things in a quiet voice. Leon only smiled because it was polite. If the man comes back, Leon won’t smile a second time. He will be on his guard and he’ll protect Carol and Jake and then he won’t get shouted out.”
Carol has a complete breakdown, and so Leon and his brother are put into foster care, a situation Leon is familiar with.
“Social workers have two pretend faces, Pretend Happy and Pretend Sad. They’re not supposed to get angry so they make angry into sad. This time, they’re pretending to care about him and Jake and his mum.”
Maureen is the experienced carer who takes them both in and I thought she was a wonderful creation. Loving and caring, tough and optimistic. She’s flawed but she gets the important things – authentic, deep care for a child – right.
“He’s heard Maureen swearing loads of times, like when she called Margaret Thatcher a bloody cow because of the miners. And once she said Margaret Thatcher could kiss her arse and Leon laughed and got caught earwigging. Maureen says that if he keeps listening to people’s private conversations his ears will shrivel into prunes and drop off. Leon always checks his ears at night just in case.”
When a couple adopt Jake, we witness Leon’s heart shattering. Maureen objects to the siblings being split up, but the decision by social services is that it is better to have one child adopted – the blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby – than none at all. And in case this seems like a period piece, just a few years ago, a social worker told someone I know that children aged over seven and in care were ‘on the scrap heap’ because the majority only want to adopt babies.
“Maureen wipes Leon’s face with the corner of her dressing gown but because it’s made of the same silky stuff as the cushions his face is still wet and begins to itch.
‘You will be alright, Leon. You will be alright.’
Leon uses the tea towel again because it’s better for tears.”
The rest of the novel sees Leon plotting to reunite his family. This involves stealing money and stockpiling supplies. He’s confused, troubled, and furious. He’s intelligent, kind and vulnerable.
At the same time, he has many adults who care for him. Maureen and her purple-haired sister Sylvia; The Zebra his social worker “but out of all the social workers he’s ever had, she looks at him the most. And when he looks away, she stops speaking until he turns round.” When he discovers the local allotments, he makes friends with further adults. Tufty provides a black male role model, and there is also Mr Devlin, an Irish man whose traumatic past the reader picks up more quickly than Leon.
de Waal balances this story perfectly. The urban setting (which some readers on goodreads have assumed is London but I definitely thought was Birmingham, including the Handsworth riots), is evoked with authentic 1980s details including Curly Wurlys and BMXs. The realities of Leon’s life, racism, and police brutality are not shied away from, but they are shown to sit alongside kindness, compassion and selflessness.
“Leon eats his toast sitting on the carpet by the patio doors. It’s supposed to be summertime but the sky is the same colour as the garden slabs, dull and grey, like the road to school, the cut-through to the precinct or the dirty lane between the tower blocks and maisonettes.”
All the adults in Leon’s young life are flawed, but none are judged harshly. Carol is shown to be extremely unwell. The social workers take damaging decisions but it’s not through disregard of the children. Those who care for Leon make mistakes and struggle to take care of themselves at times, while providing love and respite for a young person with the odds stacked against him.
My Name is Leon is a story of someone learning how to mend a broken heart at an age when you really wish they had no idea of such pain. It’s a story of resilience and all that human beings can give one another, despite our myriad imperfections. I shoudn’t have left it lingering in the TBR for so long.
To end, the trailer for the BBC adaptation of My Name is Leon, which I’ll try and find to watch now. The cast looks stellar – Lenny Henry (who narrated the audiobook and bought the rights), Christopher Eccleston and the peerless Monica Dolan alongside Cole Martin in his first acting role as Leon:
I’ve avoided this one for similar reasons to you although Kit de Waal is one of the few people who I take note of on social media these days.
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Yes she’s great isn’t she? And she used her advance from this novel to set up a scholarship programme. A very impressive person.
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This sounds a compelling but emotionally wrench read; one can’t help feeling sad/angry and helpless that our flawed systems and to an extent also our own shortcomings often cause so much pain and hardship. A wonderful review, Madame Bibi.
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*wrenching
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It really is Mallika, and you do feel furious at the impact flawed systems created by adults have on children. Yet de Waal balances this superbly with a lot of hope too. It’s so well done.
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I think this would be hard reading for me, as I do work in a setting with children, but it sounds like a very powerful read so thank you for covering it. I hadn’t realised that Kit de Waal had Irishg heritage.
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Yes I can see it would be a tough read for you Kaggsy. So much has changed in 40 years but there’s still so much that would probably resonate regarding Leon’s vulnerability.
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Like others. I had steered away from this one as I did not think I would be able to cope with the traumas. Nevertheless, your persuasive powers are, as always, working on me and I am thinking how interesting and well done it seems based on your comments and quotes, so you have definitely made me reconsider. As far as I am concerned you would be a rich person if you had commission for all the books you persuade me to read!
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Haha! Thank you for your kind comment. If I was rich I’d probably just buy more books and end up smothered under toppling TBR piles, so it’s probably for the best 😀 I hope you like this if you get to it, I avoided it for a long time too but I thought it managed to be realistic without being harrowing. There’s definitely hope there.
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Like Kaggsy, I can’t read this now because of my CASA work. It sounds like it’s well done.
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Absolutely Jeanne, you need a break to enable you to continue doing such important work.
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Excellent review. I still don’t know if I can read it. My children were removed from their birth mother (who is now dead).
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Thank you. I do see why this may not be a read you would want to spend time with.
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This sounds heartbreaking and wonderful, I can see why you put it off for so long. But you make a very good case for reading it, if nothing else just to support Kit de Waal. Your opening quote is perfect, what wise words from Dame Agatha.
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Yes Kit de Waal is definitely a good person to support! Dame Agatha is so wise, and unfortunately it is all down to luck. None of us can control the childhood we have.
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Sounds like a powerful and rather more balanced than usual look at the care system, which generally speaking tries its best against some pretty bad odds.
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Yes very much so. Kit de Waal has a lot of personal and professional experience of the system, so it’s very well balanced.
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I’ve been meaning to read this for a long time and your review has convinced me I need to do that soon. Sounds very powerful.
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So glad I’ve convinced you Cathy! It is really powerful. I hope you enjoy it when you get to it.
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I absolutely loved My Name is Leon. I think the way Kit created that child’ eye view was fantastic. I attended a talk by her around the time this was published and remember her saying how she literally crouched down to a child’s level and moved around listening to other’s speaking to experience what that was like. Her own experiences were clearly invaluable in writing this book. She’s a pretty impressive woman altogether.
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Oh that’s wonderful Ali, I had no idea she’d done that! Thank you so much for sharing. I can imagine she’s a very engaging speaker too. Great to hear you loved this too.
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We like your short review – but we wouldn’t like to read this book. There are books waiting next to our desk which are more pleasant reads, at least we suppose.
All the best
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Thank you for your comment, Happy reading 🙂
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What compassionate storytelling, giving a voice to all involved. I admire that.
Thanks for posting on a read that’s challenging but important; it’s easy to look away, to focus on our own small happinesses, much harder to make room for empathy and to witness.
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Compassion is exactly right Marcie, it was a very compassionate novel. It is a really admirable work, as you say.
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