At swim, two boys by Jamie O'Neill | Open Library (original) (raw)

At swim, two boys

by Jamie O'Neill

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.

Subjects

Teenage boys Male friendship Fiction Gay youth History LGBTQ historical fiction Easter Rising (Ireland : 1916) fast (OCoLC)fst01352821 Stonewall Book Awards Lambda Literary Awards Lambda Literary Award Winner New York Times reviewed Fiction, historical, general Dublin (ireland), fiction Friendship, fiction Ireland, history, easter rising, 1916, fiction Ferro-Grumley Award for Gay Fiction Winner

Places

Dublin (Ireland) Ireland

Times

Easter Rising, 1916