The Boy from the Sea

Compulsive reading … Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment – Louise Kennedy, author of TrespassesA 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. This is a strange, beautiful, truly compelling triumph … a breathtaking achievement – Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea and My Father’s HouseI didn’t want it to ever end – Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious ThingsA 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 RoomThe 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 RapturesThe 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, author of Ghost MountainThe 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 Beautifully written - gorgeous modern folklore – Sarah Moss, author of SummerwaterThe 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, author of The AmendmentsAn 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, author of The AlternativesA tremendous story about a family changed by the arrival of a strange boy, which feels like an instant classic … huge hearted, masterful … Told in a captivating communal voice like nothing I’ve ever read before … The Boy from the Sea is a dazzling exploration of the ties that make and bind us, as a family and community more inexorably towards the future. I’ll be pressing a copy of this book into the hands of everyone I know. – Lauren Brown, The Bookseller, Book of the Month

Garrett Carr teaches Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and has published three YA novels. His non-fiction title, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Garrett is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Irish Times. The Boy from the Sea is his debut novel.