The Boy from the Sea, Garrett Carr
In The Boy from the Sea, Garret Carr demonstrates an Irish voice that’s deep and rippling. Set in 1973 in a small town in Ireland called Donegal, a baby found on the beach is taken into the family of Ambrose, a fisherman. This event becomes a focal point within the community, with the boy from the sea becoming a mystery narrated across tongues. We follow the story from various points of view: Ambrose, his wife Christine and her family, his son Declan, and his new son, Brendan. We watch their life unfold from when Ambrose takes Brendan in, exploring how this event tremors across the years and shifts the dynamics within the family and their town.
Mixing between past and present, the characters grow familiar to us. Each family member is layered among their own net of emotions. A spotlight is shined on familial relationships, including both the aspects of family life that come with ease and those that come with difficulty. We follow the steady love of Ambrose towards his sons, the unspoken hurt between Christine’s dad and his daughters, the envy of Declan towards his adopted brother, and Brendan’s feeling of being left out. An underlying build-up of worry, love, regret, and belonging is a force that controls these family members and affects their ties with each other.
The author does an amazing job at bringing the setting to life, the coastal town pulsing at the centre of this quiet novel. There’s a strong sense of their surroundings, with the smell of fish wafting through the air, the bustling sounds of the market and screeches of the ships in the reader’s ears, and the sea bobbing in their eyes. The community is a character of its own, as Garret Carr presents us with such a real portrayal of a tight-knit Irish community, their solidarity, flaws, and gossip. We are part of their judgements and their hidden feelings of fascination and resentment towards each other. Small-town dynamics are explored through the complexity of the community and the external influence of social and economic changes owing to the ups and downs of the fishing industry and the deterioration of the economy.
The Boy from the Sea could also be seen as a study on how isolation shapes characters and how they fight against it, feeling chained to societal norms and battling against the daily current of expectations while building an inner world of private feelings and desires. Another element that I found interesting was the representation of these small-town working men. There are observations on their “quiet” nature, which seems to actually be an indication of their stifling of emotions. The novel highlights the toxic cycle of keeping your emotions silenced as a man, of being reliable and composed while letting go of any form of introspection. We are shown how this often results in a culmination of bitterness and anger, one that’s passed onto little boys as the right way to live.
Much of the novel is soft, written in melancholy and observations. It’s a hushed conversation and a quiet reflection on a community, a family, a town. There’s little closure in this read, and yet it’s clear that it’s because satisfaction isn’t the goal. We are simply walking in step with these characters; we get both somewhere and nowhere, but it’s a beautiful and moving path.
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