"Bonk on the Head is a tour of duty and a tour de force." - Mark Anthony Jarman

"[An] assured, often disturbing debut." - Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail

Shortlisted for the 2006 Ottawa Book Awards

Bonk on the Head is the fictional account of a young man’s strange and gruelling journey through military indoctrination, and the strange and gruelling family life that drives him to it. Author John-James Ford, himself a graduate of Royal Military College, presents a spirited coming-of-age novel that is at once both gripping and hilarious. The unforgettable Verbal Kempt, boy-man, flits between deranged assaults on the senses and sensory deprivation, between memory and amnesia, to define and redefine his own understanding of freedom and personality. His dilemmas take the form of private wars inside and outside the skull—embroiling family, institutions, landscape and language.