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The Fields: A Novel, by Kevin Maher
Download PDF The Fields: A Novel, by Kevin Maher
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Kate Atkinson welcomes a first novel that's "a joy to read: fresh, funny, and always unexpected."
It's the first summer of lust for 14-year-old Jim Finnegan, a boy trying to become a man in 1980s Dublin. Jim's days are spent navigating his boisterous family, taking breakneck bike rides with his best friend, dancing to Foreigner on his boombox, and quietly coveting the local girls from afar.
Jim's teenage dreams come true when he wins the attention of a beautiful older girl-but he also becomes the target of a devious religious figure in the community. When Jim and his girlfriend take a clandestine trip by ferry to London, the dark and difficult repercussions of their journey force Jim to look for the solution to all his problems in some very unusual places.
THE FIELDS is an unforgettable portrait of a boy who sinks into troubles as he grows into a man, and the loving but fractured family that might be his downfall--or his salvation.
- Sales Rank: #3730176 in Books
- Published on: 2014-07-08
- Released on: 2014-07-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.25" w x 5.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 416 pages
From Booklist
Set in Dublin in the 1980s, The Fields is the story of young Jim Finnegan’s coming-of-age. Benchmarks of his uneven progress include his serial sexual abuse at the hands of the local parish priest and his falling in love with a beautiful older girl, Saidhbh. A bit improbably (he’s only 14; she’s 17), she returns his affections and in short order becomes pregnant. The two go to London, planning an abortion. But will they follow through, and what will happen to them in the city? Maher’s first novel features a wonderfully sympathetic protagonist and first-person narrator in Jim, while his family—his parents and five older sisters—are equally endearing. The voice and tone are spot on, but after a realistic treatment of the characters and a nicely realized setting, the book takes a very odd turn near the end when Jim discovers New Age thought and practices. Indeed, the ending almost seems to belong to another book but is redeemed by the boy’s rapprochement with his family. Inconsistency aside, The Fields is an often humorous, always diverting exercise that is sure to charm readers. --Michael Cart
Review
"A joy to read: fresh, funny, moving, and always unexpected."
--- Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life and Case Histories
It's not often, reading a first novel, that you can settle back with a happy sigh, confident that you're in safe hands...Fresh, beguiling, and laugh-out-loud funny on every page, this must be the most enjoyable Irish novel since Skippy Dies."―The Guardian
"Magic and weirdly moving."―The Times (London)
About the Author
Kevin Maher was born and raised in South Dublin. He moved to London to begin a career in journalism in 1994. He was Film Editor of the Face for five years, and has written features and film criticism for the Guardian, the Observer, and Time Out. For the last seven years he has been a feature writer, critic, and columnist for The Times. He lives in England with his wife and three children. THE FIELDS is his first novel.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Funny and horrifying
By Keris Nine
There's no easy way of getting around this, and some might consider it a spoiler, but one of the most significant points you might want to know about Kevin Maher's debut novel upfront of reading it is that deals with a particularly troubling case of sexual abuse of a young Dublin boy by a Catholic priest. I didn't know this beforehand myself, but you can see it coming from very early on - almost from the moment that the rather smugly arrogant parish priest looks 14 year-old Jim Finnegan up and down in response to his mother's pleas to consider him for a prestigious position as an altar boy. The Fields is however about much more than this - and it's actually a very funny book - but the reason why I think it's worth mentioning that unpleasant matter here is that you simply can't talk about anything else in this book without that fact being known. It's an experience that colours everything and, evidently, has a profound impact on the direction that the young narrator's life takes.
And, in essence, that's the main theme of The Fields, the book considering the childhood experiences that mark us most, form our character and personality and set us on unexpected directions in adult life. It's a coming-of-age story then and it has many elements that anyone growing up during the 80s will recognise - but it's one that will have particular resonance for anyone who has grown up in Ireland during a time when the Catholic church held a unassailable position of authority, influence and unquestioning respect. If The Fields does nothing else, it helps the reader to understand why such abuses occurred and why no one - least of all young impressionable children - dared to speak out about them. These are indeed more "innocent times", and in many ways, The Fields is about that loss of innocence - from the perspective of an abused child, but how society has changed so much from those days.
I'm probably making The Fields sound much more serious than it is, when the primary characteristic of the book is dictated by the humorous way it's related by Jim Finnegan, his discovery of music, fashion, girls, of being an "outsider", of the absurdity workings of a country where Republicanism and Religion strangely still hold sway in the face of the encroaching openness of the wider world. The conflict between these two incompatible worlds gives rise to absurdly funny situations as well as having grave consequences for young Jim, particularly when it leads him down a familiar road that would take many generations of Irish people across the channel to England and the big smoke of London. Some of the "resolutions" to the issues raised in the book seem a little far-fetched, but the essence and humour of the book are clearly based on reality, and it's sometimes all the more horrifying and funny for it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Funny, Sad, Moving, and Brilliant Story about a teenage Irish Lad
By Tommy Dooley
This is a debut novel from Kevin Maher, it tells of the story of Jim Finnegan and starts our tale in 1984 when `Finno' is the tender age of thirteen. He lives with his Mammy and Daddy in Dublin and his five sisters. He also loves `Bronski Beat' and his best mate Gary whose own Daddy has to fly for the worlds worse named air line, yes Aer Lingus. Being thirteen he has more hormones than an artificial insemination production plant (if they actually exist, I haven't Googled it yet) and falls for Saidhbh who's own father is in `The Movement' which is code for the IRA, or at least everyone thinks he is. Either way he hates the ruddy Brits and loves all things Gaelic, hence the extensive use of consonants in all of his children's names.
He has to put up with a number of life's travails and also the very much unwanted attention of one of the Priests after he gets volunteered to be an altar boy. As his shenanigans get more adult in nature, his youthful innocence, which wasn't too innocent to be honest, leads him to have to make decisions that many a fully fledged adult would have problems with. The result is a brilliant story that races along so fast you are always left wanting more.
Kevin Maher has done that trick that eludes so many authors, in that he has dealt with some very difficult issues and still managed to keep the humour levels ramped right up, if this were a Rockumentary, the humour levels would be set on eleven - if you get my drift. Even when things are desperate he still manages to be funny. His observations are all brilliantly observed, but more impressive as they are done though the eyes of a fourteen year old tasting the highs and lows of life, often for the first time.
I absolutely loved this book, Maher has had abundant opportunities in writing before having worked for `The Times', `Time Out' and `The Guardian' but this has his finger prints all over it in terms of an individual style. It was clearly a labour of love and it shines off the pages. I laughed so much on one commute into London, two fellow commuters asked me what I was reading, I thoroughly recommend this and you don't have to be Irish to get the humour as it works across the divides and I am already looking forward to Kevin Maher's next one.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Uneven
By Susan Johnson
There are parts of this book that are really good and then there are parts that just make you shake your head. The books starts well with the story of young Jim growing up in the mid 1980's in Dublin. There are a lot of humorous moments and you think this is a feel good book. Then it takes a gigantic turn when something awful happens. This part has a of depth of feeling and you think it's going to be exploration of the aftermath. No. It takes another turn and goes into absurdity. It's like three separate books.
First of all, it needed some good editing. Is this a lost art? There are some slip-ups that make you cringe. For example, it's the mid 1980's and the boys go on a camping trip with their randy priest. They make gluten free pancakes. Really? In the 1980's no one knew the word gluten let alone made products for it. It also has no sense of place. Although this book takes place in Dublin supposedly it could have been anywhere in Ireland. There was really no incorporation of the city to the story.
The last part really makes me cringe. Jim is in London and runs into an old friend. They go to this spiritual awakening place that tries to make Jim a healer in two weeks. Never mind it normally takes 5 years. This sets up one of the most absurd endings I have read in awhile. It almost made me weep. This could have been a good book but clearly lost its path. Such a waste.
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