"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
This is a precisely crafted, often lyrical, portrait of the descent into madness of a young killer in small-town Ireland. "Imagine Huck Finn crossed with Charlie Starkweather," said The Washington Post. Short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award and England's prestigious Booker Prize.
Thus begins Patrick McCabe's shattering novel The Butcher Boy, a powerful and unrelenting journey into the heart of darkness. The bleak, eerie voice belongs to Francie Brady, the "pig boy," the only child of and alcoholic father and a mother driven mad by despair. Growing up in a soul-stifling Irish town, Francie is bright, love-starved, and unhinged, his speech filled with street talk, his heart filled with pain... his actions perfectly monstrous.
Held up for scorn by Mrs. Nugent, a paragon of middle-class values, and dropped by his best friend, Joe, in favor of her mamby-pamby son, Francie finally has a target for his rage -- and a focus for his twisted, horrific plan.
Dark, haunting, often screamingly funny, The Butcher Boy chronicles the pig boy's ominous loss of innocence and chilling descent into madness. No writer since James Joyce has had such marvelous control of rhythm and language... and no novel since The Silence Of The Lambs has stunned us with such a macabre, dangerous mind.
Shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize.
Winner of the Irish Times-Aer Lingus Literature Prize for Fiction.
An almost perfect novel... A Beckett monologue with plot by Alfred Hitchcock... Startlingly original." -- The Washington Post Book World
Stunning... part Huck Finn, part Holden Caufield, part Hannibal Lecter." -- The New York Times Book Review
Brilliant, unique. Patrick McCabe pushes your head through the book and you come out the other end gasping, admiring, and knowing that reading fiction will never be the same again. It's the best Irish novel I've read in years." Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
A chilling tale of a child's hell... often screamingly funny... the book has a compelling and terrible beauty." -- The Boston Globe
Lyrical and disturbing, horrific and hilarious." -- The New York Times
Patrick McCabe is an outstanding writer. The Butcher Boy is fearful, original, compelling and very hard to put out of your mind. American readers should pay close attention to this man." -- Thomas McGuane
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0880641479
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0880641479
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0880641479
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0880641479
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0880641479
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks278855
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition. HB - 1st. U.S. edition/1st. Print- NEW/NEW - Francie Brady is a disaffected, working-class, Roman Catholic teenager living in Northern Ireland. His alcoholic father works in the local slaughterhouse and his mother, despite being a whir of household efficiency, is suicidal. The latest phase of the "troubles" in Ireland have not yet formally begun--it is the early '60s--but Francie is nonetheless caught in a cycle of pride, envy and poverty aggravated by the ancient conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The book opens with Francie remembering: "When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were after me on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent." By its end, young Francie has dispatched Mrs Nugent and earned his eponymous nickname. The Nugents, a prosperous Protestant family, have it all, in Francie's eyes: their son Philip goes to private school and takes music lessons; their home is carpeted and the telly works. Francie begins by playing pranks on the family--swindling Philip out of his comic books, defecating in their house when they are away. But when he bludgeons Philip's brother in a fight, Francie loses his closest friend, who then befriends the Nugent family. Then the violence escalates. Seller Inventory # 007602
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.3. Seller Inventory # Q-0880641479