Description

As read on BBC Radio 4
A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025
An Observer Best Debut of 2025

‘Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment’ – Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
‘A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny’ The Sunday Times
‘I didn’t want it to ever end’ Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

In 1973 on the west coast of Ireland, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Who is he? Where is he from? What changes will he bring?

Ambrose, a local fisherman, is far more interested in who he will become and – with a curious community looking on – takes the baby home and adopts him. But for Declan, the baby’s new brother, this arrival is surely bad news. Rivalries can be decades in the making . . .

Set over twenty years, Garrett Carr’s The Boy from the Sea is about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world, and a town caught in the storm of a rapidly approaching future.

Readers love The Boy from the Sea:

‘Left me feeling warm and satisfied when I finished it and I’ve thought about it daily since then’ *****
‘Books are meant to change you, to shape you, and to heal you, and The Boy from the Sea does all those things’ *****
‘You feel like you’re right there in the village’ *****
‘Stunning. I found myself waking up at 5am because I was desperate to read more’ *****
‘Felt like I was stepping off life’s treadmill and immersing myself in another world’ *****

Publisher Review

Compulsive reading . . . Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment — Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses A novel of heart-bumping power and sparkling vividness, this book evokes the seethe and surge of an island nation’s sea fables while being suspicious of sentiment, often wittily so. Its depiction of a stranger’s arrival recalls great rural storytelling, from Jean de Florette to Synge’s mouthy playboy and the country music mystery tales in which a newcomer rides into town. This is a strange, beautiful, truly compelling triumph, a story about a very specific place that somehow comes to seem an everywhere and a people who feel familiar as faces in mirrors. A breathtaking achievement — Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea and My Father’s House A tremendous story about a family changed by the arrival of a strange boy, which feels like an instant classic . . . huge hearted, masterful . . . Told in a captivating communal voice like nothing I’ve ever read before . . . The Boy from the Sea is a dazzling exploration of the ties that make and bind us, as a family and community more inexorably towards the future. I’ll be pressing a copy of this book into the hands of everyone I know. — Lauren Brown, The Bookseller, Book of the Month A ruefully funny portrait of a dysfunctional family in a struggling town, The Boy from the Sea rings painfully true. I was gripped — Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room The Boy from the Sea is an utterly engrossing read. Atmospheric and incredibly moving, I was captivated by the trials and triumphs of the Bonnars. A bittersweet ballad of a novel I’ll be thinking about for a very long time — Jan Carson, author of The Raptures The Boy from the Sea has that rare quality I often find myself searching for in a novel – narrative intimacy among the vastness of life. Garrett Carr is meticulous and precise in his writing – the skilled invisibility of a true craftsman — Ronan Hession, author of Ghost Mountain The Boy from the Sea is a single-generation family saga as dazzlingly compact as it is comprehensively insightful, a love story in which the tenderness and forbearance are all the more moving for the eloquence with which the hardships and reticence are rendered. This is as impressively wise and idiosyncratic a novel as I’ve read in years — Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron Beautifully written – gorgeous modern folklore — Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr captures the changing feelings and textures of the latter decades of the twentieth century in Ireland more precisely than any other recent novel I could name. Its language and sensibility reflects the sly humour of its Donegal setting, and the reader is riveted by the heroic efforts of its characters to hold on to one another in the face of gale-force winds of historical change — Niamh Mulvey, author of The Amendments An original and rambunctious Irish seafaring novel that vividly portrays a community moving through changing times and tides-as lively a portrait as it is convincing. With a refreshing narrative approach, The Boy From the Sea excels in its clarity and particularity of voice — Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Alternatives