'Compulsive reading. Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland's west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Named Brendan Bonnar by Ambrose, the fisherman who adopts him, Brendan will become a source of fascination and hope for a town caught in the storm of a rapidly changing world.
Ambrose, a man more comfortable at sea than on land, brings Brendan into his home out of love. But it's a decision that will fracture his family and force him to try to understand himself and those he cares for.
Bookended by the arrival and departure of a single mesmerizing boy, Garrett Carr's The Boy From the Sea is an exploration of the ties that make us and bind us, as a family and community move irresistibly towards the future.
About the Author
Garrett Carr teaches Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen's University Belfast, and he is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Irish Times. His non-fiction The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. The Boy from the Sea is his debut novel.
Industry Reviews
Compulsive reading . . . Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment -- Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
A novel of heart-bumping power and sparkling vividness, this book evokes the seethe and surge of an island nation's sea fables while being suspicious of sentiment, often wittily so. Its depiction of a stranger's arrival recalls great rural storytelling, from Jean de Florette to Synge's mouthy playboy and the country music mystery tales in which a newcomer rides into town. This is a strange, beautiful, truly compelling triumph, a story about a very specific place that somehow comes to seem an everywhere and a people who feel familiar as faces in mirrors. A breathtaking achievement. -- Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea and My Father's House
A ruefully funny portrait of a dysfunctional family in a struggling town, The Boy from the Sea rings painfully true. I was gripped. -- Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room
The Boy from the Sea is an utterly engrossing read. Atmospheric and incredibly moving, I was captivated by the trials and triumphs of the Bonnars. A bittersweet ballad of a novel I'll be thinking about for a very long time -- Jan Carson, author of The Raptures
The Boy from the Sea has that rare quality I often find myself searching for in a novel - narrative intimacy among the vastness of life. Garrett Carr is meticulous and precise in his writing - the skilled invisibility of a true craftsman. -- Ronan Hession, author of Ghost Mountain
The Boy from the Sea is a single-generation family saga as dazzlingly compact as it is comprehensively insightful, a love story in which the tenderness and forbearance are all the more moving for the eloquence with which the hardships and reticence are rendered. This is as impressively wise and idiosyncratic a novel as I've read in years. -- Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron
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