Thanks, @netgalley, for the ARC.

This is a beautiful story set in rural Ireland that follows the many hardships of the Bonnar family through the eyes of a very tight-knit community.
It is full of charm,wit, and humour and is very well written, and there is great depth to the characters. It really portrays the hardships faced by fishermen and the fishing industry during the 1970s and 80s, but with a real family feel to it a well.
Overall, it was a very good book and worth a read.

Beautifully written book, such a lyrical way of writing. It flowed like a great conversation, easy to read, hard to put down

The trials and tribulations of the fishing community wrapped around the relationships within a family.
Quite a gentle tale of a boy adopted by a fisherman and resented by the natural son.

A foundling is found floating in a barrel in the sea in rural.Ireland. Locals call him the Boy From the Sea and his story becomes almost mythical.

The baby is taken in by a fishing family who already have a toddler son. Renaming him Brendan, the Bonnar family treat him as their own and bring him up alongside their biological son Declan. Unfortunately Delcan harbours resentment towards his adopted brother and over the years this causes a lot of friction.

The book follows the family as the boys grow up and is an interesting insight into the culture of rural Irish fishing communities in the 1980s and the challenges faced in a changing society.

Wirtten from the perspective of the locals, it is almost a fly on the account. An emotional, thought-provoking and down to earth story

"Christine reckoned she had a solid twenty-five years of matriarch left in her and she'd always use it to direct Declan towards sources of self-esteem. If no good source was available she'd at least make sure he was occupied. As a fisherman, Declan would probably stay in Donegal and continue to live at home until he married and that would be fine, she'd keep an eye on him until then and maybe beyond if his wife was the meek sort."

To give the basics, a baby found abandoned on a beach is shared among the town at first but ends up coming home with Ambrose and Christine. They already have a son, Declan, who bitterly resents the newcomer, named Brendan by Ambrose, the more so as life goes on and Brendan exhibits strange behaviours, becoming feted as almost saint-like for a while and getting a bit too big for his boots. Will the brothers always be in conflict? Meanwhile Christine's sister Phyllis also has cause for bitterness as she's left at home (just up the road) caring for their elderly and difficult father. This is all set against the background of the fishing industry, with Ambrose and his best friend Tommy in business together with a small fishing boat at the start of the book in 1973 and their fortunes dividing as the industry changes.

Although this is being touted as Carr's first novel, he's actually written three YA books and a work of non-fiction, and he teaches creative writing, so he's by no means a newbie, and that shows. While it's deceptively simple in its language, the structure and voice is very technically interesting, hopping forwards in time, always understandable, and shifting between the third person internal narratives of the main characters and the first person plural (we) of the chorus of townspeople who offer narrative, comment and explanations of the culture and traditions. But it's also such a quietly perceptive and emotionally literate read: look at this description of toxic male inarticularcy:

"Ambrose had all the language required to define precisely the meaning of a cloud, the character of a sea, an attitude of rain, but to describe his own emotional weather he was limited to 'Been better,' 'Been worse,' and 'You know yourself.' When Christine first met Ambrose he seemed to have a great way with words but now she knew it was nothing but banter. He'd tell you about himself in a way that seemed spontaneous and open but he only began a story when he knew how it ended."

There are also beautiful, tender scenes of care and caring and a very vivid adventure at sea that had me frantically reading, sure I knew what was going to happen (I didn't).

I loved that Carr thanks the translators in his Acknowledgements, "getting The Boy from the Sea into other languages", as well as the usual publishers, peers and family.

Dare I say it, if you loved Claire Keegan's "Small Things Like These" for its quiet, working-class characters and small town life with an undercurrent of deep morality and humanity, but wanted more than a novella, you will love this.

Publishing review on my blog on 3 March 2025 to coincide with Reading Ireland Month: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/03/03/book-review-garrett-carr-the-boy-from-the-sea/

The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr was a lovely book set in 1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, when a baby was found abandoned on the beach. He was named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who found him and and then adopts him with his wife Christine, the baby captivates the whole town from day one.

Christine, falls in love with Brendan when she first see's him. But, for Declan, their son, his new brother’s arrival is the start of a life-long rivalry. Even though Ambrose brings Brendan into his family home, it is a big decision that will fracture his family and force this man who is now more comfortable at sea than on land.

This book was told over two decades, Garrett Carr's the author tells a story of a restless boy trying to find his place in the world and a family fighting to hold itself together. It is a story of ordinary lives made extraordinary, a drama about a community who can’t help but look to the boy from the sea for answers as they face the storm have a rapidly changing world.

This book was a wonderful read from start to finish. A joy to read. I loved it. I loved the book cover, a great eye catcher.

I highly recommend The Boy from the Sea.

SYNOPSIS
In a tight knit but tired fishing community in Donegal a baby boy washes up in a barrel. Ambrose and Christine Bonnar name him Brendan, and raise him alongside their aggrieved biological son, Declan; but Brendan is restless on land constantly trying to find his place in the world, and within his adopted family, whilst the rest of the community look towards this captivating boy for answers. A multi-layered mesmeric story of twisted fates, identity, love and rivalry, of ordinary lives made extraordinary, set in Ireland during the 70s and 80s.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a book that is beautifully written, full of heart, and the warm humour of Donegal. The story waxes and wanes with the tides of the The Bonnar family, which is not smooth sailing as Carr makes many keen observations about hardship and grief that had me highlighting entire passages. Carr’s tender writing made it feel like I was reading about real people with an attention to authenticity that brought a real place to life. I know that I will think often of the Bonnar family long after finishing this book.
I rated this 4.25 stars, and highly recommend this to lovers of literary sagas in particular Irish historical fiction. I would like to thank the publishers Picador Panmacmillan and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

An intimate and moving portrait of an isolated community in Donegal Bay. Our unnamed narrator, a member of this community, recounts changing times and challenges from an insider's point of view.

A baby washes up in a barrel one day and is adopted by Ambrose and his wife Christine. The couple already has a young son, Declan, and he resents the interloper from the beginning.

As the boys grow this resentment deepens as each seek a way to be seen. They crave their father's time and approval, but in trying economic times, attention is all about survival. Ambrose is a fisherman and with quotas and increasing competition for large trawlers, making ends meet becomes increasingly difficult.

The writer captures the sense of community, with its kinship but also its judgement so beautifully. Gossip and rumour spread quickly, but there is support and loyalty as well, something that sadly seems to be in decline as we live increasingly isolated lives. An elegy to the past that removes rose-tinted lenses to reveal the hardships and complexity of people everywhere.

Beautifully written and well told. The story of an abandoned baby and his subsequent life and finding his place in the world

' The Boy From The Sea' is Garrett Carr's wonderful adult debut novel.

It is set in Killybegs, Co Donegal, a fishing village in the northwest of Ireland. In 1973 a baby was found in a barrel on a beach in Donegal. The orphan boy was taken in by the fisherman Ambrose Bonnar and his family. Ambrose and his wife Christine already have a son, Declan, who is a couple of years older. A lifelong rivalry develops between the two brothers.

The story follows the Bonnar family over the next couple of decades when the boys are growing up. It is a tale about the hardship of the life as a fisherman, tough decisions and family bonds.

The novel is written from an unusual perspective. The we-narrator is the people of Killybegs which gives the reader the impression of being immersed in the story and evokes a sense of community.

This is a beautifully and tenderly written book about family, hardship and belonging.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to review the ARC.

I loved the first half of this family saga but as the boys grew up my interest grew less. There was an awful lot about fishing which whilst I was at first interested in soon was simply too much to keep me bothered.
I’m not sure why it went wrong for me but lack of character development and over long over complicated passages didn’t help.

My reading has featured quite a lot from Ireland lately and I am finding it a refreshing change. The Boy from the Sea has proven to be the cherry on top in its cosy, relaxed, quintessentially Irish way. In this charmer we follow Ambrose and Christine Bonnar as they adopt a baby that has been found on the beach at Donegal, circa 1973. A good Christian thing to do, to be sure, but not all agree. Declan, their young son, is not keen to share his parents, home or even bedroom with this new interloper and is free and easy with his disgruntled opposition.

Brendan, the boy from the sea, causes no end of fascination for the locals and this wonderful tale is narrated by an omnipotent, unnamed villager who is the voice box for the community wisdom. I'm not Irish but I have been and love the country and its people. There's a sensible pragmatism that belies Irish logic, understated yet forceful at the same time. This novel is oozing with it, making it the delight I so enjoyed.

The characters are sublime. The interactions, especially when things get a bit fractious, are realistic and the narrative analysis of events is simply spot on. I was charmed from page one and enjoyed my time with the Bonnar family, most particularly Phyllis, Christine's sister. She didn't fly the nest of the childhood home, like Christine did, and instead stayed home to care from their elderly father. Her personality and way of thinking is skewed by her choices and her possible jealousy of Christine and her perceived freedoms. Like Declan, she also believes there's no room for Brendan in the family equation but will that belief ever shift?

This is simply a joyous family drama. Full of good and bad times, difficulties, love – spoken and unspoken. A gem of a novel that touched my heart. Rich in the beauty of Ireland, this novel will transport the reader to a lovely, hard working fishing village in a bygone time as this family adapts to the curveball life throws their way. Simply marvellous.

There is so much to admire in this novel, as is so often the case with Irish literature. There is a wonderful cast of characters and we watch them as their relationships develop over time. The relationship between Christine and Phyllis is especially interesting, their estrangement, the tension in their interactions, but both reaching an understanding of the other. There is tension too between Declan and Brendan borne out of jealousy and the unexplained appearance of the younger boy in the family, whose strangeness is enigmatic and cannot be explained since his background is completely unknown,

I love the setting of a small fishing village, brought to life in so many small details, acutely observed. In this place everybody is watching everybody else, and there is the effective use of the narrator being the people of the village, rather than a single voice. It conveys the expectations of how people should behave, but is never overly judgmental.

At several times in the narrative there are potentially dangerous moments, in particular the boat far out to sea without power in a storm, but the expectation of disaster is never fulfilled, so when disaster does strike suddenly and horrifically it is more shocking, and its repercussions make for difficult reading.

I loved the story and the writing style, always clear and concise. I will be looking out for more books by this author.

In 1973, a baby boy is found abandoned on the beach of the little Donegal fishing town of Killybegs. At first, the town is in wonder at this gift from the sea and pass him around from family to family to enjoy, but soon the novelty wears off and he is eventually adopted by a fisherman called Ambrose Bonnar who names him Brendan. He and his wife Christine already have a two year old son, Declan who, as he grows older, feels sidelined and decides he will never accept Brendan as his ‘brother’ or part of the family. Christine’s sister Phyllis who has remained unmarried to care for their cantankerous elderly father also does not agree with the arrangement and this creates a chasm in the sisters’ relationship.

This engrossing and charming tale is told in the first person plural, from the collective point of view of the community who watch and gossip about what is going on in their small town. Told with gentle Irish humour and a fondness for his characters, Garrett Carr’s debut adult fiction novel is beautifully written and full of characters who emerge fully formed from the page. The small coastal town is so vividly depicted that it’s not hard to imagine the calls of the seagulls and salty smell of the sea as the waves pound the coast.

Brendan grows into a strange little boy. Shunned by his brother, who he initially follows and tries to please, he has few friends and eventually takes to wandering the areas surrounding the village. He visits lonely people and as he gets older, bestowing blessings on them which they believe are healing, especially given by the boy from the sea. Meanwhile, Ambrose and the other small fishermen are finding it harder and harder to make a living with EU fishing quotas and the arrival of larger and larger boats from Europe to fish in the Atlantic.

This gentle Irish tale of family and community will pull you in to the highs and lows of relationships and events in a small town that is struggling to adapt to a changing world. Just lovely!

I'm afraid I found this rather tedious and stodgy. It was less about the 'boy from the sea' (baby abandoned on a beach, then taken in by husband and wife, Ambrose and Christine, and son Declan) and more about the hardships of the fishing industry: something I'm perfectly aware of but didn't particularly want to read about.

The characters are rather wooden and one-dimensional. I felt nothing for any of them. There are long, long, rambling passages without a paragraph break or dialogue, all the harder to read because of a distinct lack of correct punctuation. The 'narrator' was unusually, 'we', i.e., the residents of the community, where the story is set.

The ending was inconclusive and left me with questions. I always finish a book, no matter what, but this was very hard-going.

This is the captivating tale of a foundling discovered in a fishing barrel on a beach, and the impact this has on an Irish fishing community. Starting in 1973 and spanning the next twenty years, the story tells how the baby is adopted by Ambrose and Christine who already have a young child called Declan. Declan refuses to accept Brendan as his brother, however to the townsfolk, Brendan becomes something of an enigma.

This tale is so much more than just an account of Brendan's life. Narrated by a villager whose identity is never revealed, there is gentle humour, authentic writing about the hardships faced by the fishermen as they battle with life at sea and EU fishing quotas, as well as the intense rivalry between Declan and Brendan. The narrative around caring for a domineering, aging relative and the impact this has on Christine's relationship with her sister is so well written. The storyline takes the reader in some unexpected directions, some sorrowful and others upbeat. Beautifully detailed writing, I could smell the sea and the fish, hear the waves crashing on the shore, feel the gales and sea water lashing on the deck.

A brilliant debut novel, I look forward to future novels by this author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for my advance reader copy in return for my honest and unbiased review.

The Boy From the Sea
By Garrett Carr

Killybegs is the largest fishing port in Ireland. It's sound are the sea, the clanging of iron against steel, the constant screech of seagulls. The smells are diesel and brine and mackerel and herring. The people live their lives to the rhythm of the sea and almost everyone is involved in the fishing industry. They are hard working, in daily battle against the sea to eke out an existence, men climbing aboard trawlers, risking life and limb, women waving them off, not quite sure if they'll ever see them again.

Into this appears a baby, washed up onto the shore, like Moses in his basket. They can only guess, but nobody really knows where this baby came from, but one thing's for sure, he needs a family.

This story kept bringing me back to another foundling story I read recently, "The Time of the Child" by Niall Williams, and in common, they both focus more on the community the child is thrust into than the boy himself. I love the relationships in this story, and the themes it explores, family dynamics, the caring of elderly parents and how that can cause rifts between siblings, martial resentments, grief and unfulfilled potential.

What makes this story stand out for me are the insights into the fishing industry and the communities that serve it. How fishing in Ireland has been decimated because it has been offered up in sacrifice in order to gain grants and revenue in other areas of the country and the economy from Europe, making the small family business a redundant concept. It makes me sad to realise the shame I feel that the honour of fishing, of caring for the sea and the sealife that was under the custodianship of all those generations who went before, is overrun by the Russian and Spanish supertrawlers who come in and clear out the seabed, regardless of sustainability or environment consequences.

There aren't many other industries here anymore that are so fundamentally a matter of life and death. This story has turned a lens on a livelihood I had never thought so much about before and told with such awareness of human nature.

Publication date: 6th February 2025
Thanks to Picador for gifting this ARC in return for an honest review.

Beautifully tender and filled with real characters, this was a great book exploring the life of a fishing village in Donegal through one family in particular. The humour and warmth made this book stand out for me – the villagers are used perfectly to narrate the book through personal family issues and local problems facing them all. I really enjoyed Garrett’s writing, and I look forward to reading more from him.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

Garrett Carr grew up on the north-west coast of Ireland, in the small fishing town of Killybegs in Donegal and it is here he has decided to set his debut novel. He has already had YA and non-fiction works published and now lives in Belfast where he is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Queens University. This had for me the feel of a Donal Ryan novel and it is every bit as good as Ryan at his best.

In 1973 a baby is found in a barrel on the beach. The locals become temporarily spellbound by the magic of such a situation and many families want to look after him. He ends up as a member of the Bonnar family, named Brendan by his fisherman adopted father, Ambrose, wife Christine and not exactly welcomed by two year old son Declan. This is the tale of this family over approximately the next twenty years.

It's a family tale with vivid characterisation of the Bonnars and Christine’s sister and father, Phyllis and Eunan Lyons, who live up the lane but why it really works is the narrative style which can best be described as a chorus of the townfolk, a third-person narrative referring to themselves as “we”. We don’t find out who it is specifically but it doesn’t matter as everyone knows everyone’s business anyway so we are not missing out on anything. This seems a risky move but it works sublimely. The only occasion I can remember going overboard with this narrative style is the chorus of Truman Capote’s women friends in “Swan Song” by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott which was my favourite book Of The Year of 2019.

The narrative is full of warmth and humour, they are not afraid to poke fun at themselves and their ways or at those who live in other parts of Ireland. The view of Brendan, as the boy who came from the sea, becomes enriched by this narrative perspective which also gives a real sense of community. There’s always going to be something different about him and he offers a sense of mystery rarely present in these lives.

I thought this was an extremely strong novel. The fishing element also brings about moments of high tension and the family dynamics kept me hanging onto every word of this hugely talented writer’s work.

The Boy From The Sea Is published by Picador in the UK on 6th February 2025. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

3.5 stars. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I really liked the melancholy feel to the writing and that it was positioned from the perspective of the whole community (the 'we' was never quantified but I took it to mean everyone who lived and worked around the sea). On the other hand, I wanted to know more about some of the characters - Declan and Christine especially - so I could get more of an understanding of their feelings.
I found the story really interesting in its everyday-ness. The descriptions of the experiences of fishermen and the women they leave onshore were engrossing and vivid. I also liked the theme of how our life experiences shape us, was Brendan the way he was because of his strange start in life or would he always have turned out that way? Would Declan have just found something else to rail against all his life if his dad hadn't brought another baby into their home?
On balance, this was a book I'm glad I read.