Jason Lowry is 11, living in a small Irish town during the 2009 recession, and spending a misspent summer with a strange girl who daydreams herself on trips to Ancient Greece and Egypt.
Ostensibly, the boy is trying to find out the name of his father from his heavy-drinking, negligent mother – but has to tackle the alluring threats of petty crime, underage sex and self-harm with his newfound accomplice.
This debut coming-of-age novel from Galway-based writer Alan McMonagle cleverly deals with topics that are far too adult for Jason to fully comprehend, despite the boy’s zinging observations of the town’s residents.
It could easily be bleak, but McMonagle’s dark humour, wry one-liners and direct descriptions of Irish people – possibly honed during his two collections of short stories – makes the children’s search for ‘Ithaca’ oscillate from appalling to heartbreaking.
Comparisons to The Butcher Boy by Pat McCabe are inevitable and despite Jason’s recklessnes, it’s hard not to be on his side.
