Buy this book on-line McCABE**, PATRICK: : THE BUTCHER BOYLONDON.PICADOR/PAN,1992. ISBN 033032358X.
UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,2nd imp.FINE/FINE.
No owner inscrptn,no price-clip to dw/dj.
Bright, crisp, clean, glossy laminated,
colour artwork by Rob McCaig illustrated dw/dj,with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight and near pristine - no dog-ear creases to any pages' corners - an unread copy? Bright,unblemished, publisher's original black cloth bds with bright,stamped silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip,headband,and immaculate, plain green eps - though to rear pastedown,a small ink capital D with
'amaged' inside it - but no evident damage
noticeable.8vo,1-215pp [paginated] includes half-title+title pages,2pp blanks
to rear.
'The Butcher Boy' is a powerful and deeply shocking novel where the seemingly innocent logic of a child imperceptibly turns into the manic logic of an unhinged mind.Patrick McCabe portrays 1960's small town life from a bizarre perspective where
the aliens from Outer Space on the television are as real as the emotional poverty of one child filled with unconscious envy for another.' - Dermot Bolger. 'The Butcher Boy' is as exciting as it is horrific,as comic as it is disturbing.
The story is told in flashback,from Francie Brady's wooded hideout,where we learn that the whole town is after him "on
account of what I done on Mrs Nugent."Set in Northern Ireland in the early 1960's,
Francie is the neglected only child of an alcoholic father and a suicidal mother.His
troubled family is very unlike that of the
well-to-do,Mrs Nugent and her namby-pamby son Phillip.Francie's imagination is saturated with comic books,American movies,television,and the mischief he gets
up to with his only friend Joe Purcell.
The stifling town in which Francie lives,
and his twisted family life,makes him love-starved,emotionally stunted,and ultimately unhinged.While Joe can grow into adolescence,Francie remains undeveloped and childlike,despite leaving school early and getting a job in an abattoir,an appropiate occupation for one obsessed by Mrs Nugent's comparison of his
family to "pigs."Exploiting the tendency of the childish voice to imitate what it overhears,the narrative recycles adult cliche throught he mind of a disturbed boy. The more the outside world rejects him and fails to meet his needs,the more recourse he has to his fantasy world,so that the descent into madness and murder,
however genuinely shocking,comes with its own childish logic.A powerfully original voice,deftly crafted into a compelling,
shocking,and entertaining novel about a damaged childhood.
Winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Prize 1992.
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