The Truck in the Window: A Novel About Silence, Shame and the Search for Freedom

What happens when a boy grows up learning that silence is safer than honesty?

Born in a small village in Istria, Niko learns early how to make himself smaller. He hides his wishes from a strict father, his fear from violent teachers and the truth about who he is from almost everyone around him.

As he grows older, music, friendship and first love offer brief glimpses of freedom. But each step toward honesty carries a price: shame, secrecy, heartbreak and the constant fear of what other people might say.

From school corridors and army barracks to crowded dance floors, a struggling computer shop and the streets of Glasgow, Niko searches for a place where he can stop apologising for his existence.

The Truck in the Window is a tender and unsparing autobiographical novel about growing up different in a world that teaches you to remain quiet. It is a story about family, identity, first love, social anxiety and the slow, difficult process of becoming yourself.

Not a story of heroes.

Not a story of perfection.

A story of one ordinary boy learning that freedom begins when he no longer asks permission to want a life of his own.