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Pikey comes from the novel Broken by Daniel Clay. The novel, inspired by Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has been made into a film starring Cillian Murphy and Tim Roth. And I'm pretty jazzed because Mr. Clay has offered to write a guest post on my blog about the experience of having his novel adapted into a film!!
I've only just begun the book but am hooked already. Here's the bookdescription from HarperCollins.
Until that fateful afternoon, Skunk Cunningham had been a normal little girl, playing on the curb in front of her house. Rick Buckley had been a normal geeky teenager, hosing off his brand-new car. Bob Oswald had been a normal sociopathic single father of five slutty daughters, charging furiously down the sidewalk. Then Bob was beating Rick to a bloody pulp, right there in the Buckleys' driveway, and life on Drummond Square was never the same again.
Inspired by Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, Clay's brilliantly observed and darkly funny novel follows the sudden unraveling of a suburban community after a single act of thoughtless cruelty.
PIKEY
"- all the other kids he'd met in Hedge End so far had called him a stinking pikey, and left him to play on his own."
Okay so pikey isn't a compliment.
According to the Collins English Dictionary
| 1. | a gypsy or vagrant |
| 2. | a member of the underclass |
That completely makes sense as Dillon, the 15 year old boy speaking here has just told the group that he's a gypsy. Dictionary.com adds that it's derived from piker, turnpike. Again, referencing the gypsy nomadic lifestyle.
That's the only new word for me, Clay's novel takes place in a society where the simple language of the streets makes sense. I really can't wait to read the rest of the book - I've just read the sample and am waiting for the hard copy - and then, the movie! Plus a visit from Mr. Clay. I'll keep you posted in the meantime thanks for stopping by and check out the trailer with French subtitles for Broken below.