![]() ![]() This novel is certainly dark but there are also touches of humour. One New York Times critic described the book as “part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield, part Hannibal Lecter” and its hard to disagree with that assessment. ![]() My feelings towards Francie were constantly shifting at times I pitied him, at times I despaired of him and would have liked to have got my own hands upon him. Written in the regional vernacular it initially takes a bit of getting used to but once I did I found its rhythm strangely compelling that seemed to match Francie's deteriorating mental state really well. This novel chronicles 'the pig boy’s' chilling loss of innocence and descent into tragedy and madness. ![]() Nugent’s son, Philip, Francie finally finds a target for his twisted rage. Nugent, when he is dropped by his best friend Joe Purcell who has outgrown their boyhood mischief in favour of Mrs. ![]() Sexually abused whilst at a Catholic reform school, ridiculed by his neighbour Mrs. The only child of an alcoholic father and a mother driven mad by despair, as his troubled home life collapses Francie retreats into a fantasy world. We first meet Francie hiding out "in hole under a tangle of briars" whilst being hunted by the police "on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent." It is only much later that we learn what his actual crime was. Set in a small town in the early 1960's Ireland 'The Butcher Boy' is a hybrid of first-person narrative and stream of consciousness told by Francis 'Francie' Brady, also known as the 'pig boy'. "All the beautiful things in this world are lies. ![]()
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