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Praised as “a work of wild, vaulting ambition and achievement” by Entertainment Weekly, Jamie O’Neill’s first novel invites comparison to such literary greats as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Charles Dickens.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.
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0devoured this book. truly couldn't put it down. would sneak in a few pages whenever i could just because i was so desperate to see where the story would go and because i fell in love with jim and doyle!!! even though it's an incredibly dense book, it's very easy to read, the rhythmic nature of the book making it such a page turner. at it's core, it's a love story, of two boys finding each other in the calamity of life, but it's also so much more than that and it pulls on all your heart strings, keeps you at the edge of your seat and ultimately leaves you aching for more, for better, at the end!! quite a difficult read in some places, as some of the topics it touches upon are incredibly harrowing, but they're worth it, and often make the characters more realistic and human. it's a tragic story, but there is hope and joy sprinkled so many times throughout!! read the final few pages on the train and had to bite my lip hard to stop myself from crying....well worth taking the time to read this lengthy novel, in my opinion, not one page was a waste of time!!
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