At Swim, Two Boys
Jamie O'Neill
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
4.10
· 20 ratings · 576 pages · Published: 01 Sep 2001
Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill.
Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.
Tagged as:
- romance 4
- lgbtq+ 3
- historical 3
- historical fiction 3
- men loving men 3
- coming of age 3
- literary fiction 3
- war/big battles 3
- classics 2
- drama 2
- friendship 2
- 20th century 2
- realistic 2
- religion 2
- military 2
- world war I 2
- family 1
- political 1
- bildungsroman 1
- military, war & conflict 1
- spirituality 1
- action / adventure 1
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- format - reader age
- young adult 1
- book 1