The Lantern Bearers (Frame novel) 4067936 206871251 2008-04-20T12:13:10Z JzG 760284 cleaning up after move war using [[Project:AutoWikiBrowser|AWB]] :''This article is about the book by Ronald Frame. For other books and uses of the term, see [[The Lantern Bearers]]. [[Image:lantern-bearers.jpg|thumb|210px|''The Lantern Bearers'' book cover]] '''''The Lantern Bearers''''' is the twelfth [[novel]] by [[Scotland|Scottish]] author and [[playwright]] Ronald Frame. It won the [[Saltire]] Book of the Year award in [[2000]]. Frame’s novel is set in Scotland where Euan Bone, a young [[composer]], lives with his [[homosexual]] partner Douglas Maitland. Bone is struggling with a major work based on ''The Lantern Bearers'', an [[essay]] by [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]. The story is told by a [[gay]] 35-year-old Neil Pritchard who, when a [[puberty|pubesecent]] 14-year-old, visited the village where Bone lived. Bone was searching for a [[boy]] [[treble]] to sing for him and help inspire the composing process and young Neil ends up as his [[muse]], singing for him every afternoon. The relationship between Bone and the boy [[child grooming|develops]] from a professional one to one of mutual affection as Bone takes Neil swimming and walking in the forest. There is some [[physical intimacy]], and Neil describes his emerging [[homosexual]] urges, but there is no suggestion that Bone crosses the line by allowing pats and hugs to escalate into [[Child sexual abuse|sexual activity]]. Neil clearly becomes infatuated with Bone, yet we never discover the true nature of Bone’s love for the boy. Maitland becomes more and more upset by Bone’s love for Neil and his behaviour becomes erratic. Neil is then cursorily rejected by Bone when his voice breaks this has a [[Psychological trauma|traumatic]] effect on the boy. Neil cannot understand or accept the rejection and follows Bone around the village. Bone ignores him. Neil’s obsession leads him to steal the [[manuscript]] of the Lantern Bearers and plant it in Maitland’s car (having lovingly copied it) and this spontaneous [[adolescent]] action accelerates the break up the Bone/Maitland partnership. Neil ultimately is driven to invent a rumor of [[Child sexual abuse|child molestation]] against Bone. Alerted by Neil's father, the police pursue Bone, who dies in a [[rentboy|rent boy]] [[sting operation]]. The adult Neil eventually discovers that Bone had had an earlier relationship with Simon, a boy treble in [[England]], and that there was evidence of [[pedophilia|paedophile]] activity. Maitland discovered [[semen]] on the stair carpet and the boy’s parents involved the police. Neil is commissioned to write a [[biography]] of Bone and returns to the Scottish village to unearth the hidden manuscript. ==See also== *[[Pedophilia]] *[[List of books portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors]] *[[Child sexual abuse]] [[Category:2000 novels|Lantern Bearers, The]] [[Category:LGBT literature in the United Kingdom|Lantern Bearers, The]] [[Category:Scottish novels|Lantern Bearers, The]] [[Category:Muses|Lantern Bearers, The]]