ReviewBook review: A Boy Made of Blocks fails to build momentum

Keith Stuart’s debut novel tells the story of recently separated Alex and his eight-year-old son, Sam. From birth, Sam was beautiful (an “incontinent Mick Jagger”) and difficult (“he seemed to be livid with the world”). In fact, Sam is autistic, something that increases Alex’s guilt. “‘I can’t fix it all,” is one of several defeated proclamations. To start with, Alex hardly fixes anything at all, from the school run to deciding whether Sam can take a ball to the park. Then, in a turn inspired by Stuart’s own life, the pair discover the computer game Minecraft, which opens up new possibilities for everyone. Autism has proved a powerful draw for novelists: most famously Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . Perhaps it’s because fiction can rise to the challenge of describing this singular way of seeing the world, at once moving, infuriating, confounding and oblique. But something about the narrative never takes off. Alex is flawed and likeable, but also rather one-paced and predictable, right down to the happy ending. Sam and his journey steal the show, but as fiction this is more worthy than wondrous.