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Beach boy is Ardashir Vakil's first novel and was nominated for Whitbread Prize for first remarkable novel and went on to win the Betty Trask Award which is also given for first novel by authors who are under 35 years of age and residing in a current or former commonwealth country.

It's a bildungsroman or coming -of-age story of protagonist Cyrus Readymoney, who's an 8 year old Parsi boy from Bombay.
The Good old Bombay of 1970's,when the city's identity wasn't changed to the present day Mumbai, when the names of roads and streets were as old as city itself. Cyrus,the boy, grows all alone in his sea faced house on juhu beach as his parents are always on tours and business.He's a big movie buff and throngs to bombay's theaters to watch movies on his own,he talks about his love to watch movies in dark theaters amidst so many people all coming from several parts of the city,he describes the snacks and meals served in the theater.He's a big foodie and describes each and every dish that he has had with immaculate precision.
While reading one can feel mouth watering with the delicacies that he's having or describing in the story.

The novel goes on to focus on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood in which the character of Cyrus changes from being an 8 year old to a 10 yr old boy. He's belongs to rich elite class of Parsi family and while his parents are absent or on business tours,he stays with his friends ,eats and sleeps with them at their houses. He keeps himself busy by visiting his neighbours,the Krishnans,the Vermas and the Maharani are some of his closest buddies.

He values his family time a lot,whenever he gets to share it with his parents and 4 other siblings named Behroz,Adi,Nasli and Shenaz.He tells us how he misses their company and how much the family vacations means to him.The neglect of his wealthy parents towards him and his childhood presents him with many opportunities to discover his life with his neighbours and friends and essentially it gives the story many colorful characters who are as wonderful and as diverse as the cosmopolitan populace of Bombay itself. At the start of the novel we have Mrs. Verma and her sons watching movie with Cyrus in a theater, Mrs. Verma in the story is known for her make-up and fake smiles,then there are The Krishnan's who have some sort of enmity towards Mr. and Mrs. Vermas and Mr. Krishnan himself is a very proud man and his family is very strict,disciplined and athletic,Then there is Bhagwan and Barua both are servants in their house,then we have an affluent Maharani and her seductive daughter with whom Cyrus does manage to have some sexual play, and lastly his brusque Aunty Zenobia, who's a very religious and strict person.

After a while we come to know that his parents have temporarily separated and her mother shifts to a different place in the city where his father sometimes comes to visit them(his wife and his 5 children).Here,Cyrus develops some kind of harshness in his attitude for his dad as he comes to know of his infidelity with his mom.Then,he goes to a vacation with Krishnan family and while vacationing comes to know about his Father's illness.He goes back to Bombay in the midst of his vacation and tries to remember the last time he had a talk with his dad or seen his face, his mind keeps repeating "that you won't be able to see your dad ever again"

He tries to keep away from such thoughts & premonitions but they keep coming back to him, haunting and teasing him away.
Then his dad passes away,and then he realizes that he's a different person now,everyone starts behaving differently towards him, but he wants things to remain the same as if nothing had happened,the novel comes to an end with funeral ceremonies and he concentrates hard during those few days to understand the meaning of life and death. After his dad's loss, young Cyrus is upset over not being able to roam freely,discover new things,roam here and there aimlessly as a vagabond, as he used to do earlier.
His aunt Zenobia keeps him under her strict control and tries to curb his impish spirit unknowingly.

In the end,Cyrus learns ,what the death of his father means to him and his family through descriptions of his elder brother Behroz and his servant Bhagwan about his father who left something or the other for each and everyone in the family,he realizes the importance of life and is not the same individual as he was at the beginning of the story.His sobered adolescence comes from his father's death and his reflections on life and death while he was at the fire temple attending to his dad's funeral ceremonies.The emotions in him have changed and he now starts viewing himself as a responsible person,he starts experiencing the loss which earlier didn't bothered him much,he now knows what it means to have a family and how much parents contribute to a child's development.