At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill |
Ireland, 1915. Against the backdrop of war, sixteen-year-old 'heart's pals' Jim and Doyler make a pact to swim to a distant rock the following Easter, to plant the national flag. In the meantime, their search for life, loyalty and love (illuminatingly, for ignorant heterosexuals) involves political struggle, the Church, poverty...Been-there-done-that? But with his roots deep in Ireland's literary traditions O'Neill develops a voice of his own, a kind of tough poetry, to tell this moving story.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 19 June 2003 ) |
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