{"id":8492,"date":"2021-12-10T06:19:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T06:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8492"},"modified":"2021-12-14T12:37:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T12:37:30","slug":"boys-dont-cry-by-fiona-scarlett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8492","title":{"rendered":"Boys Don\u2019t Cry by Fiona Scarlett"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Faber 22 April 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

256pp, hardback, \u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seventeen-year-old Joe O\u2019Reilly lives in a Dublin tower block with his Ma (Annie) and Da (Frank) and his 12-year-old brother, Finn.\u00a0 Da is a violent man; everyone is scared of him.\u00a0 Ma is long-suffering, tough, and the much-loved barmaid at The Tavern, which is the HQ of a local gang, run by ruthless Dessie Murphy, who has a hold over Da.\u00a0 Joe, a gifted artist, has won a scholarship to the local private school but feels bitterly the divide between that privileged world of effortless belonging and the landscape he comes from, \u2018this sea of concrete and steel, broken glass and destruction\u2019.<\/p>\n

Narrated in alternate chapters by the two brothers, Fiona Scarlett\u2019s heartbreaking novel tells the story of what happens when Finn falls ill and Da is arrested for attempted murder.\u00a0 Early on, we understand that Finn has died: his narration is, unlike Susie Salmon\u2019s in Alice Sebold\u2019s acclaimed novel The Lovely Bones<\/em>, both posthumous and<\/em> real-time, which has the effect of making Finn seem incredibly alive.\u00a0 He lives through his own fatal illness as something he desperately does not want to inflict on his beloved family.<\/p>\n

Da\u2019s imprisonment (for a crime connected to Murphy), Finn\u2019s mortality and Ma\u2019s mounting distress combine to turn Joe into a walking time-bomb of anger and loss.\u00a0 When he learns that his best friend from the towers, Sabine, has a debt to repay, he takes it upon himself to clear it, not knowing that in their world a debt is never cleared.\u00a0 Sabine, Annie and Frank all try to stop Joe from getting entangled in Murphy\u2019s web, but the only thing that matters to Joe is that Finn is dying.<\/p>\n

The great strength of this novel is Scarlett\u2019s understanding of both the bleakness and the love in the world of these young people.\u00a0 Finn\u2019s chapters show a child seeking to protect his family while also trying to grasp what is happening to his body.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s show the courage, loyalty and rage of a young man who experiences directly the collateral damage of gang activity.\u00a0 This impressive first novel has the impact and ring of authenticity we associate with Ken Loach\u2019s films: a screen adaptation would be something to look forward to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* A 2021 Notable Book<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

The great strength of this novel is Scarlett\u2019s understanding of both the bleakness and the love in the world of these young people. Finn\u2019s chapters show a child seeking to protect his family while also trying to grasp what is happening to his body. Joe\u2019s show the courage, loyalty and rage of a young man who experiences directly the collateral damage of gang activity […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8492"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8565,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8492\/revisions\/8565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}