Jamie O'Neill
At Swim, Two Boys
(Scribner)

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Synopsis

Set in Dublin and its near surrounds AT SWIM, TWO BOYS follows the turbulent year to Easter 1916. At its core it tells the love of two boys, Jim, a naive and reticent scholar, the younger son of foolish, aspirant shopkeeper Mr Mack, and Doyler, the dark rough diamond son of Mr Mack's old army pal.
Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, the two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact: that Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, they will swim the bay to the distant beacon of the Muglins rock, to raise the Green and claim it for themselves. As Ireland sets forth towards her uncertain glory there unfolds a love story of the utmost tenderness, carrying the reader through the turbulence of the times like a full blown sail.
AT SWIM, TWO BOYS is written with great verve and mastery. It shares those elements that are the marks of all great books - the breadth of its canvas, the skill of its brush, the intensity of its subjects and, above all, the shining light of its humanity.

Biography

Jamie O'Neill was brought up in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. He spent ten years working as a night porter whilst writing AT SWIM, TWO BOYS.

Contributors Testimonials

The reason this pips Patrick Gale and Armistead Maupin, brilliant though they are, is that I understand and know these characters in their real, working-class quest for love. It’s set in Ireland in the years running up to the Easter Uprising, and is about two young men who fall in love and how their love develops over time. All the characters are eminently believable, and it’s full of Irish witticisms and poetry, and has wonderful echoes of the potential of unrequited lost love. It deals with the oppression by the Catholic Church and culture in general. It’s a reminder that the best thing is to help express love, rather that religion using ideology to oppress love.

Michael Cashman MEP