The Boy from the Sea
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In 1973 on the west coast of Ireland, a baby is found abandoned on the beach.
Ambrose, a local fisherman, takes the baby home and adopts him, while a curious community looks on. But for Declan, the baby’s new brother, this arrival is surely bad news. Rivalries can be decades in the making . . .
Set over twenty years, Garrett Carr’s The Boy from the Sea is about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world, and a town caught in the storm of a rapidly approaching future.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
‘The Boy from the Sea’ is a lyrical commentary on belonging, being an outsider, holding on to traditions, sibling rivalry and the ties that bind. The common decency of one of the primary characters, Ambrose, shines throughout this novel. There are shades of magical realism and that liminal space between this world and the next. The novel is also a commentary on modernisation contrasting with members of a community who cling to tradition. It spans two decades of a period in Irish history where money was in short supply and the fishing industry suffered due to the introduction of quotas and EU expansion into Irish territorial waters. The two brothers at the heart of the story are completely unalike, and despite their distant relationship the filial bond is stronger in the end. ‘The Boy from the Sea’ is a wonderful, transformative read which will linger with you, long after reading. (Galway Public Libraries)