This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.
You mustn’t do that to yourself Shy. You mustn’t hurt yourself like that.
He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him.

Got your special meds, nutcase?

He is escaping Last Chance, a home for “very disturbed young men,” and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past, and the heavy question of his future.

The night is huge and it hurts.

Max Porter Porter's Shy is a deeply empathetic and experimental story about troubled young men on the brink, a theme common in his work. It’s set in Last Chance House, a rundown mansion-turned-school for 'misbehaving boys', located in the middle of nowhere. The house may be just as haunted as the boys' minds. Porter uses a mix of forms and playful, poetic language to capture the confusing way Shy experiences his fragmented memories. Although the experimentation sometimes overshadows the execution, the overall impact remains strong.