Surrender (novel)

Infobox Book |
name = Surrender
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = "Surrender", Paperback edition
author = Sonya Hartnett
illustrator =
cover_artist = Front cover photograph copyright 2006 by Craig Aurness/Corbis
country = Australia
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Walker Books (Australia)
pub_date = 2005
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback, Paperback)
pages = 248
isbn = ISBN 0-670-02871-1
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Surrender" is a novel written by the award-winning Australian novelist, Sonya Hartnett. It was first published in 2005 in Australia by Walker Books. It is narrated by twenty-year-old Gabriel, who is dying, and twenty-year-old Finnigan, a homeless boy who is Gabriel's only friend.

Plot

Seven-year-old Anwell lives in a prestigious but coldly distant family with a mother who is always sick and a father who punishes him with physical abuse. Anwell has no friends and is on a very tight leash. He is sitting in the back yard one day when he meets wild boy his age named Finnigan, his alter-ego or second personality. The two make a pact to be reflections, blood brothers, twins. Anwell is to be an angel and in honour of his new identity, is renamed Gabriel. He is never to be angry and never to fight. Finnigan is to always be angry and to always fight. If Gabriel (Anwell) wants revenge or anything bad done, he asks Finnigan to do it for him.

Finnigan becomes Anwell's only friend, and Anwell confides in him what he has never told anyone else, of how he killed his older brother Vernon. His brother, though he was three years older than Anwell, "was never the elder of us". His parents, disgraced and humiliated by Vernon, refuse to take care of him, leaving Anwell to do the job at the young age of seven. Enjoying his task, Anwell routinely feeds, washes, and entertains his brother. One Sunday, while his father is out to work and his mother is sleeping due to a migraine, Anwell is again taking care of Vernon. Anwell tries to feed Vernon early, making the elder cry out, disturbing the silence Anwell was told to keep. To hush him, Anwell stuffs a cloth into Vernon's mouth, and to hide (and protect) him from their mother, Anwell hides Vernon in the only place he can think of at the moment, which happens to be the refrigerator. When Anwell goes back to retrieve Vernon after his mother has left, he finds Vernon frozen and dead. This act of innocent murder traumatizes the small Anwell forever.

Finnigan becomes the town arsonist, lighting the town aflame piece by piece in an act of revenge for Gabriel, but Finnigan is soon out of control and the only way for Gabriel to stop Finnigan is for Gabriel to kill himself at the young, "martyr's age" of twenty by condemning himself to a mentally caused illness.

Author's Summary

As life slips away, Gabriel looks back over his brief twenty years, which have been clouded with frustration and humiliation. A small town and distant parents ensure that he is never allowed to forget the horrific mistake he made as a child. He has only two friends - his dog, Surrender, and the wild boy, Finnigan, with whom he made a boyhood pact. When a series of arson attacks grips the town Gabriel realizes how dangerous Finnigan is and that only the most extreme measures will rid Gabriel of him for good.

A Micheal L. Printz Honor Book.

An American Library Association Top Ten Books for Young Adults Selection.