a book
The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks · 1998 · 184 pages
The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath.
Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:
Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.
That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.
It was just a stage I was going through.
Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:
Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.
That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.
It was just a stage I was going through.
recommended by 3 people
sourced from public statements
Irvine Welsh
“The Wasp Factory was one of those books that changed my life & made me want to be a writer. But my favourite Iain Banks book is The Bridge.”↗
Shirley Manson
“This is a sci-fi book by Scottish writer Iain Banks. It’s about a 17-year-old boy who does some very evil things. It’s violent, dark and twisted: a depraved and subversive treasure that appealed to me in my late teens. I later became friends with Iain and his belief in me gave me confidence. When I got the gig in Garbage, there was no one happier for me than him.”↗
