“This narrative monologue is the centerpiece of the work, dominating even the storyline lurking dangerously beneath it, perhaps forming it.”

Paddy Clarke as a poor 10-year-old Irish boy makes for a phenomenal narrator and a highly difficult one: at this age, his street language and ideas snap back and forth with a potent lack of focus, almost free associating as he relates his understanding of the world.

This narrative monologue is the centerpiece of the work, dominating even the storyline lurking dangerously beneath it, perhaps forming it. What seems a quick assortment of anecdotes and observations, delivered with all the pugnacious confidence of his age, soon yields to discomfiture in readers as we sense another pattern beneath it, but–because the energetic and unreasoned narrative voice never leaves us–we have a difficult time ascertaining where our worries are. The neighborhood boys are cruel, even violent, in their escapades, quick to obscenity even when they are uncertain of language. But Paddy boasts his understanding of the world, what is important and what is not, even while we appreciate the ironyA "deflection of expectation," where words, situation, or pe... More. 

But as this longish novel ambles along with neighborhood changes and schoolyard dramas, we see too that as Paddy grows, his discernment does along with it, though he becomes less and less certain about that worldliness. We begin to recognize just how thick his childhood narration is in psychological defenses, how tragic the story may be even when he does not always see it himself.

But this is a slow burn. So much of the book, from adventures running through the darkness of freshly-laid sewage pipes to various thefts and vandalisms perpetrated on the community, are marked by absurdismA fundamental lack of reason and coherence in human existenc... More and hilarity that we almost forget–like Paddy–that we need bother with anything else.

For readers, this is still a terrific read, if stubbornly oblique in its narrative clarity for around 300 pages. Be patient when the narrator is not, enjoy his nonsense and rare insights, and ready yourself for what growing up is really all about.