Kensington Gardens

A children’s writer unreels a shocking confession in Rodrigo Fresán’s dazzling English-language debut. Known to millions by his pen name, Peter Hook, Fresán’s hero has survived the death of his rock-star parents, and a childhood surrounded by 1960s excess, to become the most successful children’s author of his generation, best loved as the creator of the time-traveling boy Jim Yang. Over the course of one night, Peter tells his life story—and that of J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan—to the child actor cursed with playing Jim Yang in the movies. Gradually, a fantastical and terrible tale emerges, a tale of shadow identities and suicide, lost boys and foundlings. Moving between the Edwardian age and Swinging London, Kensington Gardens is an exploration of the charms and perils of nostalgia and children’s literature from one of Latin America’s most celebrated young novelists.