The Boy from the Sea

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.

"Carr’s beautiful and beguiling debut offers many delights. The characters live and breathe on the page. Masterful depictions of hardscrabble existences on land and perilous escapades at sea are offset with moments of wry humor… A novel that will bewitch many readers.”—The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Carr’s novel accesses deep strands of truth by embedding magic in the real… In the difficulty of these characters’ lives is a sense of real connection that gives the book a kind of lightness, of what might be possible in a real community: lasting ties, genuine reciprocity. This is not false hope; it’s just hope… This is a surprising, tender and warm-hearted novel about a real place and real people.”—The Guardian

"A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny."—The Sunday Times

"The novel does something only art can, which is to show how more than one truth might be held in mind at once, even if together they conflict... Wry, observant, various and thoughtful, a book that gathers momentum like a westerly, the crash of consequences giving way to a late calm, the reader left with a stunned impression of the storm that just blew over."—The Irish Times

"Expansive and intimate, funny and warm, while also psychologically astute... The result is immersive in the best way."―The Herald

"A beautifully written, tragi-comic triumph."―Sunday Independent

"A lyrical, beautifully written portrait of a place and its people."―Mail on Sunday

"Stunning."―Good Housekeeping

"Outstanding . . . one of those beautiful books that soothe the soul."―Prima Magazine

"Carr’s chorus is a charming and sometimes humorous voice... which poignantly paints the struggles of marriage, caregiving, grief and financial worry."―Financial Times

"Beautiful, funny, utterly glorious."―Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina

"Beautifully observed, and funny, and poignant, I don’t want it to ever end. " ―Jennie Godfrey, bestselling author of The List of Suspicious Things

"Beautifully written – a gorgeous modern fairy tale." —Sarah Moss, author of The Fell

"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, author of The Wonder

“Compulsive reading . . . Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment.” —Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses

"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. This book is fully alive, and enlivens the reader with it." —Rónán 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, and a wryly penetrating meditation on what makes the Irish the Irish. This is as impressively wise and idiosyncratic a novel as I’ve read in years.” —Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron

"The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr captures the changing feeling of the latter decades of the twentieth century in Ireland better 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 the gale-force winds of historical change.”—Niamh Mulvey, author of The Amendments

“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, A Boy From the Sea excels in its clarity and particularity of voice.” —Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter and The Alternatives

"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

“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

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 nonfiction work, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. The Boy from the Sea is Carr’s debut novel.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.