They're all so tedious and writers do go on at such length. Here's Maude again: "I can't remember the last time I read a novel. But this jokey nudge, nudge, wink, wink from Boyne (who has found great commercial success himself, particularly with his young-adult novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) wears thin. "There's something terribly crude about a popular book, don't you think?" says Maude, a novelist who hopes never to achieve any sort of commercial success. I was jolted out of Cyril's world again and again by the incongruity of the witty repartee. ![]() Some of the passages – the dialogue in particular – are indeed funny, but by sacrificing authenticity for a cheap laugh, he does a disservice to his story. But too often, Boyne goes for laughs to the detriment of the narrative. The book deals with some serious subject matter – gay-bashing, political corruption, AIDS – as well as the brutal sadness of being an other in a society that does not tolerate or even acknowledge others. He will ultimately find true love, but not without consequences. Cyril grows into adulthood completely closeted, relying on brisk, anonymous sexual liaisons in the night, but he desperately wants to achieve what he has been socialized to believe is a normal life – which means marriage to a woman. His parents always refer to him as their adopted son and insist that he call them by their first names, Charles and Maude. He has all the creature comforts a boy could want, but is deprived of the most important comfort – loving parents. The novel is told in seven-year increments after the first section, we leave Kitty to focus on Cyril, now a seven-year-old adopted as a newborn into a wealthy family. ![]() Concerned, he invites her to crash with them until she can find a job and a place of her own. On the bus to the big city, Catherine – Kitty – meets a nice young man, who is going to be sharing a room in Dublin with a boy from his hometown. The story begins in tiny Goleen, where Catherine Goggin is publicly shamed by the parish priest due to her condition – pregnant and unmarried – and then exiled.
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