THE BOY FROM THE SEA

A surprise arrival at an Irish fishing town upends a family and community.

The debut adult novel by Carr opens in 1973, as a barrel carrying a newborn baby appears on the shore of Killybegs. The arrival of a Moseslike prophet? An infant abandoned by a desperate young mother? The novel’s collective narrator notes that the townspeople are open to various interpretations. After being passed from home to home, he’s adopted by a fisherman, Ambrose, and his wife, Christine, who name him Brendan. The boy’s arrival stokes resentment in his new older brother, Declan, and it intensifies the sibling rivalry between Christine and her sister, Phyllis, who’s taking care of their widower father down the lane. Neither’s sour mood will appreciably dissipate in the decades that follow. Carr’s depiction of this milieu is expert on two fronts. First, he’s gifted at capturing the excitement and tension of seafaring life, as Ambrose struggles to keep his beloved ship functioning and profitable amid high seas and an increasingly corporatized industry. Second and more important, Carr thoughtfully explores the ways Brendan’s peculiar origin story complicates a variety of family relationships, as well as Brendan’s own self-image—for a time in his teens, he and the community take the prophet interpretation seriously, and he delivers “blessings” around town. Declan’s decisions, as well as the sisters’, often hinge on their subconscious feelings about Brendan and need for Ambrose’s esteem, which Carr grasps as both liberating and constricting. Later chapters explore Brendan’s true provenance, but even without that information it would still be a sharp, well-made work about the complications of everyday parenthood and siblinghood.

An intimate and psychologically savvy domestic drama.