Shy (novella)
2023 book by Max Porter
Shy is a novella by Max Porter, published in 2023.
The book is named after its protagonist, a 16-year-old at a boarding school for troubled boys, in England in 1995. The story takes place over the course of a few hours one night. "The book's true setting, however, is the sprawling, shifting terrain of Shy's mind." According to Kevin Power, writing in The Guardian, "it is interested in questions of childhood and maturity, cruelty and compassion, art and despair". Shy mixes prose and poetry. Stylistically, there is unusual typography. Similar to Porter's other works, the writing itself is experimental, reflecting the subject's chaotic mind.
The book was adapted into the 2025 drama film Steve.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Shy (novella)” is 2023 book by Max Porter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through novella, book and Porter, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “2023 book by Max Porter” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q123509465. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1995 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shy (novella)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.