At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel

by JamieO'Neill (Author), O'Neill (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $18.19

  Praised as a work of wild, vaulting ambition and achievement by Entertainment Weekly, Jamie O Neill s first novel invites comparison to such literary greats as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Charles Dickens. Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916 Ireland s brave but fractured revolt against British rule At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O Neill. Jim Mack is a naive young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son revolutionary and blasphemous of Mr. Mack s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.