Publisher: Picador
Publication Date: 6th February 2025
The Boy from the Sea is a novel that is set in Ireland in the 1970s. It opens prophetically with the arrival of a single baby boy, cast adrift and alone. The baby washes up ashore in a makeshift style float much to the interest and shock of the whole town of Killybegs on Ireland’s west coast in the county of Donegal. The story then follows the life and direction of this child as he grows up and navigates his sense of belonging and self. Brendan, as the child comes to be known, is adopted by a local family, the Bonnars, Ambrose and Christine who already have a young son Declan. The Bonnars are a working-class family with Ambrose himself a local fisherman and Christine, a cleaner at a hotel. In the beginning they enjoy relative monetary success: Ambrose is a skilled fisherman who can read the oceans and knows instinctively where the biggest shoals will arise. However, during the course of the novel and with the passage of time, the industry experiences a complete overhaul, and boats are replaced by high tech giants that track fish using computers and hunt them in unprecedented numbers.
The progression of time is a done effectively in this novel and Carr deftly takes the reader through the family’s ups and downs, both their joys and their sorrows. These are also entwined and juxtaposed with highs and lows of the town of Killybegs inhabitants as well as society as a whole. We periodically read about named individuals who have experienced some life changing event, perhaps they have gone to hospital or a child of someone else has ended up in prison, another individual who has gone through financial hardship another who ran away. This feels again to be a commentary on not just the passage of time but also how we all, despite our close proximity, lead separate lives and have our own trials in life that we must face.
Declan’s and Brendan’s relationship is a key point of focus and the brother’s animosity grows over time fuelled by jealousy and resentment. This division is on occasion fed or enforced by Christine’s sister Phyllis who lives next to the Bonnar’s and has taken responsibility for the care of her and Christine’s elderly and infirm father, a role that provokes its own levels of resentment and longing. Despite the hardships many of the characters face, a sense of community prevails within the novel. Not least through the use of free indirect discourse used by the author. The narrator takes on almost a collective voice of the town’s inhabitants, beginning sentences with ‘we knew’ or ‘we always thought’ in this way the reader is drawn into conversations and speculations about central characters in a way that is both gossipy and intimate.
The Boy from the Sea is such a beautiful book that encompasses ideas about time, community and relationships. The characters are fully realised and poignantly portrayed; a beautiful exploration of humanity and connection.
Thank you to Netgalley and Picador for my ARC
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