Cover of The Wasp Factory

Book 1992

The Wasp Factory

3.727 250 readers shelved it

Publisher
Abacus
Published
1992
  • Fathers and sons
  • Fiction
  • Serial murders
  • Teenage boys
  • Murderers
  • Psychopaths
  • Medicine in Literature
  • Mentally ill

Written from the first person perspective, it is a deeply unreliable narrative told by sixteen-year-old Frank Cauldhame, describing his childhood and all that remains of it. Frank observes many shamanistic rituals of his own invention. As the novel develops, his brother's escape from a mental hospital and impending return lead on to a violent ending and a twist that undermines all that Frank believed about himself.