Review by Liz Dexter
Christine reckoned she had a solid twenty-five years of matriarch left in her and she’d always use it to direct Declan towards sources of self-esteem. If no good source was available she’d at least make sure he was occupied. As a fisherman, Declan would probably stay in Donegal and continue to live at home until he married and that would be fine, she’d keep an eye on him until then and maybe beyond if his wife was the meek sort.
I read this book when it first came out, intrigued by the premise of a boy who apparently appears from nowhere and is adopted into a working-class Irish family. I can truthfully say that I’ve not been able to forget it, and it’s been one of the books I’ve recommended to people the most since I read it, sharing that and certain DNA with Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These: quiet, working-class characters and small-town life with an undercurrent of deep morality and humanity
So, what happens? A baby found abandoned on a beach is first of all shared among the town but ends up coming home with married couple, Ambrose and Christine. They already have a son, Declan, who bitterly resents the newcomer, named Brendan by Ambrose, the more so as life goes on and Brendan exhibits strange behaviours, becoming feted as almost saint-like for a while and getting a bit too big for his boots. Will the brothers always be in conflict? Meanwhile Christine’s sister Phyllis also has cause for bitterness as she’s left at home (round the corner) caring for their elderly, difficult father.
The book is set vividly against the background of the fishing industry, with Ambrose and his best friend Tommy in business together with a small fishing boat at the start of the book in 1973 and their fortunes dividing as the industry changes and boats become bigger, systems more automated.
The fact that Carr had written three YA books and a work of non-fiction, and teaches creative writing, means that although this is his first adult novel, we’re in safe hands. While it’s deceptively simple in its language, the structure and voice is very technically interesting, hopping forwards in time, always understandable, and shifting between the third person internal narratives of the main characters and the first person plural (we) of the chorus of townspeople who offer narrative, comment and explanations of the culture and traditions. Too much “we” would be too much, we all know that; but this has just enough.
It’s also, though, a quietly perceptive and emotionally literate read: take a look at this description of toxic male inarticularcy:
Ambrose had all the language required to define precisely the meaning of a cloud, the character of a sea, an attitude of rain, but to describe his own emotional weather he was limited to ‘Been better,’ ‘Been worse,’ and ‘You know yourself.’ When Christine first met Ambrose he seemed to have a great way with words but now she knew it was nothing but banter. He’d tell you about himself in a way that seemed spontaneous and open but he only began a story when he knew how it ended.
There are also beautiful, tender scenes of care and caring and a very vivid adventure at sea that had me frantically reading, sure that I knew what was going to happen (I didn’t). As I said at the start, a book I have pressed upon people urgently.
Liz Dexter knows how to sail but chooses not to. She blogs about Reading (and sometimes Running and Working from Home) at https://www.librofulltime.wordpress.com
Garrett Carr – The Boy from the Sea (Picador, 2025). 978-1035044573, 336pp., paperback 2026.
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