In a dilapidated mansion, in the middle of the night, a young man is considering what could be his final decision in this world. The rucksack is shockingly heavy. The floorboards complain. He checks again, the spliff is diagonal-snug in the empty Embassy box. The daytime check is a half-dream away. The room is molten soft. Tempting. Jumpy. The rucksack is shockingly heavy. It's 3:13 a.m. Shy. A troubled teen, a "dangerous young man," a reject from the social structures that no longer wish to nurture him. Shy knows that society has not failed him, he has failed it--parents, schooling, friends and sometime girlfriends. Judged and found wanting, he now lives at Last Chance, a boarding school for boys like him. Set over a few hours of a single evening, Shy exists between the stillness and beauty of a nocturne and the exhilarating shout of simultaneous teenage joy and anguish. With leaps of linguistic brilliance and wild energy, this is an utterly immersive novel in its authenticity and heart-breaking honesty. As with all Porter's writing, the darkness is indivisible from a core of humour and humanity. It is his greatest feat of empathy yet.