It’s the late 1960’s and Ireland’s economy is taking off. Dublin is an expanding city, swallowing up the surrounding working-class neighborhoods and filling them with freshly tarred asphalt roads, public-housing projects, and construction sites. One of those small northern suburbs, Barrytown, is home to ten-year-old Paddy Clarke and his family. His father works in the city, and his mother stays at home caring for Paddy, his younger brother Francis (nicknamed Sinbad), and his two baby sisters. Paddy spends most of his free time running with his pals Kevin, Liam, and Aidan, with Sinbad as an add-on due to babysitting orders.

With green farm fields quickly disappearing, the ever-present construction sites become the favoured hangouts for childhood adventure.  This one year in the life of Paddy is filled with mischief, near-escapes, pranks, challenges using the building materials left unattended, and dares. Whether at school, out in the fields, or down in the sewage piping being laid, daring ritual ceremonies take place, younger kids are teased and hassled, fires are built, and football is played. Hierarchy within the group is firmly maintained with periodic scuffling, Paddy working hard to stay right up there with leader Kevin. New faces ‘on the block’ only serve to strengthen their ties.

This energetic tough play slowly becomes overshadowed by Paddy’s growing concern about what is happening with his parents’ marriage. The quiet nighttime fights, long living room silences, his father’s periodic absence, and his mother’s sudden ‘illness’ push him to extreme childhood measures.  Paddy’s places of safety, warmth, and settledness within the home serve him no longer as he fearfully works to protect these significant relationships.

I laughed as well as ached while reading through this novel of a young boy’s slow, haphazard, and painful journey inching toward maturity.  It is not a book of chapters with clear time delineations; rather, it reads somewhat randomly yet progressively, daring exploits entwined with thoughts and feelings about family, friends, neighbours, and school. Immediately drawn into the joy of boys running free without the constant constraints of digital devices, my favourite gang event is the regularly held Grand National.  A race designed to seriously challenge the faint at heart, it involves jumping over the hedges of ten different neighbours’ yards without getting caught or breaking a leg. This time Liam breaks his teeth.

The aching pain is real as well, with Paddy anxious and confused about what is happening at home and with his parents. Slowly, the fun outside becomes not nearly as important as being okay and feeling safe inside with his parents and siblings. The longing for everything to stay the same, to return to what it had been only last year is so very real. Paddy’s efforts to make his family ‘right’ again speaks volumes to me about the lengths children sometimes go to try and hold families together.

This human need for a ‘safe place’ is powerful, whether one is ten years old or fifty years old. For a child, the loss of security seems to dramatically impact even the closest of friendships. As adults, we recognise that sometimes one must look for that ‘safe place’ beyond family. Such a place where we can experience acceptance, share our real thoughts, and be loved just as we are is a treasure, worthy to be earnestly sought after and found.

A tremendously amusing and insightful book!

Mary, July 2021

*image posted for non commercial purposes under fair use of copyright material in recommendation of the book

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