Twelve-year-old Finn Townsend wakes up one day with super-hearing. It gives him ‘dancing eyes’ and fainting spells, makes him the target of the school bully, and opens a window onto his parents’ failing marriage. At night he hears the dream-talk of Buseje, an illegal asylum seeker from Malawi who lives downstairs in the granny flat.
Finn begins to retrieve the fragmented stories which spill out while Buseje sleeps, helping her untangle the terrible mysteries of her childhood. But as Finn’s superpowers grow, he unwittingly unleashes ghosts from the past and the secrets they carry.
As the immigration officers close in on Buseje, can Finn do anything to prevent her from being deported?
 
Testimonials: 
‘Whimsical and tender, What the Boy Hears When the Girl Dreams is a beautifully written coming-of-age story. Reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this is a powerful and moving exploration of friendship, trauma, loss and recovery.’ Suzanne Leal, author of The Deceptions
 
 
‘A richly complex and lyrical novel that is a portrait of the essential reckoning that the young must make with pain and suffering in order to fully inhabit their moral personhood.’ Ceridwen Dovey, author of In the Garden of the Fugitives
 
‘A moving, sensitive account of a child comprehending his startling circumstances as he grapples with the broken adult world around him. What the Boy Hears When the Girl Dreams is at once heartbreaking and redemptive. Graeme Friedman is a gifted storyteller.’ Kate Rossmanith, author of Small Wrongs