A love story and a domestic horror story, so insightfully written that you cant always separate its loving aspects from its horrifying ones. I didnt fully realise Id read it in a single sitting until it was time to turn the lights on -- Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours Block is unflinching in both his honesty about his unhappiness and his profound love for the mother who didnt want to let him grow up. An important book for our current world, Blocks brave story will help a lot of people feel less alone. An instant classic -- Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow An urgent, wrenching, fantastically told tale that is also filled with hope, much the same way a heart can both break and hold fast under the weight of a mothers touch -- Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts Painful, funny, honest, heartbreaking. Nothing less than a sensational book -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less A coming-of-age memoir for the ages, in turns hilarious and compassionate, furious and faithful -- Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars Club Block achieves something remarkable: to put the reader inside the head of a child and let us understand what it was like to be that child and then also, when he switches perspectives, a variously faceted portrait of a mother. Heartbreaking and totally compelling -- Alexander Starritt, author of Drayton and Mackenzie A compelling and fitfully harrowing childs-eye account of a mothers unravelling -- Fiona Sturges * The Guardian *