In what is Irish author Garrett Carr’s adult fiction debut, The Boy from the Sea centres the Bonnar family and their adopted son, Brendan. Having been found abandoned on one of Donegal’s beaches on Ireland’s West Coast, Brendan is seen as an unlikely godsend to the people of Donegal, all the while complicating the dynamics of the Bonnar family home.
Brendan’s stay-at-home mother, Christine, and fisherman father, Ambrose, navigate the economic difficulties of late 20th century Ireland and, as his older brother, Declan, comes to terms with losing his place as an only child, Donegal and its inhabitants watch from the privacy of their own lives.
To best capture this relationship, Carr employs the convention of the mysteriously unnamed narrator, Donegal’s chronicler and an insider eye into the Bonnars. This narrator uses inclusive pronouns – ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ – to retell their story as though it equally belongs to all. And while it may feel off-putting at first, it works to create that small-town feeling found in works like Rosalie Ham’s The Dressmaker.
This is the narrator, speaking on behalf of Donegal in the first sentence of the book: “We were a hardy people, raised facing the Atlantic… Our town wasn’t just a town, it was a logic and a fate. We knew there were more pleasant and forgiving places… but they seemed meek in comparison.” Carr also offers humour to soften some of community-wide complications Donegal faces. In an amusing sequence where one of the town’s characters considers applying for the dole for the first time, the narrator describes an office “down the back lane by the laundrette” with “barely translucent windows” as a place of shame that only becomes more common in Ireland’s woeful economy.
The novel’s potential lies in its attempt to capture universal themes in an intimate and isolated setting including brotherhood, masculinity and fatherhood.
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As Declan and Brendan evolve from young children to young adults, Ambrose’s deficiencies as a father come to light. His unobservant nature reveals just how much the brothers need intervention in establishing a sibling bond: “You’ll be great pals one day, wait ‘till you see”. Disappointingly, Carr does not fully explore Ambrose’s understanding of his sons – or lack thereof.
While the premise of the novel seems engaging, it feels monotonous to push through. Plot points such as the loss of steady income for the Bonnars and encounters with their extended family are significant catalysts for Declan and Brendan and mark their journey into adulthood. The gravity these events should carry, however, gets lost in Carr’s longer chapters, where trivial details of fishing ships and town regulars are sluggish and pull away the focus from the family. With these faults in mind, The Boy and the Sea, while admirable in some areas, is not as impactful as it could have been.
The Boy from the Sea, Garrett Carr
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9781035044559
Pages: 336pp
RRP: $34.99
Publication date: 11 February 2025
