Set on Ireland’s west coast in the 1970s and 80s, a captivating debut novel about a baby boy who is discovered on the beach beside a small fishing town, as told by the locals who fall under the boy’s transfixing spell.
"Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment."—Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Ireland 1973, a baby boy is found on the beach of a close-knit fishing village. Fisherman Ambrose Bonnar offers to bring the child into his own family: his son, Declan, wife, Christine, and up the lane, Christine's sister and aging father. The townspeople remain fascinated by the baby, now named Brendan, as he grows into a strange yet charismatic young man.
The Boy from the Sea tells the story of a family and community, all thrown into turmoil by Brendan’s arrival. The family's fortunes rise and fall over the years—as do the town's, because nothing happens to one family here that doesn't happen to them all—as the forces of a voracious global economy and modernized commercial fishing wreak havoc on their way of life. In the village, Brendan and Declan are wildly different and often wildly at odds; out on the sea, Ambrose worries about his children, but cannot afford to tear his attention from the brutal work that keeps his family afloat. As the world around them keeps changing, the mystery of one boy’s origins pulls them all toward a surprising, stormy fate.
Both outrageously funny and incredibly moving, The Boy from the Sea is a dazzling novel from a major new voice in Irish literature.
Genre: Literary Fiction
"Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment."—Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Ireland 1973, a baby boy is found on the beach of a close-knit fishing village. Fisherman Ambrose Bonnar offers to bring the child into his own family: his son, Declan, wife, Christine, and up the lane, Christine's sister and aging father. The townspeople remain fascinated by the baby, now named Brendan, as he grows into a strange yet charismatic young man.
The Boy from the Sea tells the story of a family and community, all thrown into turmoil by Brendan’s arrival. The family's fortunes rise and fall over the years—as do the town's, because nothing happens to one family here that doesn't happen to them all—as the forces of a voracious global economy and modernized commercial fishing wreak havoc on their way of life. In the village, Brendan and Declan are wildly different and often wildly at odds; out on the sea, Ambrose worries about his children, but cannot afford to tear his attention from the brutal work that keeps his family afloat. As the world around them keeps changing, the mystery of one boy’s origins pulls them all toward a surprising, stormy fate.
Both outrageously funny and incredibly moving, The Boy from the Sea is a dazzling novel from a major new voice in Irish literature.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"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
"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
"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." - Rónán Hession
"An original and rambunctious Irish seafaring novel that vividly portrays a community moving through changing times and tides-as lively a portrait as it is convincing. With a refreshing narrative approach, The Boy From the Sea excels in its clarity and particularity of voice." - Caoilinn Hughes
"Beautifully written - gorgeous modern folklore." - Sarah Moss
"The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr captures the changing feelings and textures of the latter decades of the twentieth century in Ireland more precisely than any other recent novel I could name. Its language and sensibility reflects the sly humour of its Donegal setting, and the reader is riveted by the heroic efforts of its characters to hold on to one another in the face of gale-force winds of historical change." - Niamh Mulvey
"A novel of heart-bumping power and sparkling vividness. 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
"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
"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
"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." - Rónán Hession
"An original and rambunctious Irish seafaring novel that vividly portrays a community moving through changing times and tides-as lively a portrait as it is convincing. With a refreshing narrative approach, The Boy From the Sea excels in its clarity and particularity of voice." - Caoilinn Hughes
"Beautifully written - gorgeous modern folklore." - Sarah Moss
"The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr captures the changing feelings and textures of the latter decades of the twentieth century in Ireland more precisely than any other recent novel I could name. Its language and sensibility reflects the sly humour of its Donegal setting, and the reader is riveted by the heroic efforts of its characters to hold on to one another in the face of gale-force winds of historical change." - Niamh Mulvey
"A novel of heart-bumping power and sparkling vividness. 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
"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
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