The year is 1868, and Edward Dickens, the youngest son of Charles Dickens, is coaxed into leaving home for Australia to work on a 2,000-square-mile sheep farm. Almost from the moment he arrives, he's accosted by fans of the celebrated novelist. Yet Edward has a terrible secret: He's never read a single word of his father's books. As his stay in Australia lengthens, he encounters bandits and romance, and begins to suspect that his father sent him away to get rid of him. (Dickens is always sending his ne'er-do-well characters to the colonies, as his brother Alfred notes.) Written in a Victorian pastiche that recalls Great Expectations, The Dickens Boy is an affecting coming-of-age story about a young man struggling to escape his father's shadow and find his own place in the world.