Rating: 
Summary: From Francie's mouth to your ears
Review: Every word of this book passes through Francie Brady's lips creating an interesting perspective on life, friendship, family, and cold war politics. The language is funny and matter of fact. Really, this book is about the dangers of neglecting a needy child but McCabe doesn't beat the message too strongly. By the end, the story becomes horrifying and sad - but leaves the reader with an unforgettable character.
Rating: 
Summary: The Eyes of Francie Brady
Review: Francie Brady is mad, first a little, then a lot, and he is taking you with him. The claustrophobic narrative (you can't for a moment get away from Francie) creates pity, terror and exasperated laughter in the reader.Francie, the only child of a mean-drunk father and a slovenly, barely sane mother keeps his sanity by his all-encompassing friendship with Joe Mullen. He and Joe "mess around," do all the boyish things and bond as blood brothers. But as Francie's oddities increase, Joe pulls away from him. Francie shatters. From the very beginning, there is a tethered violence in Francie; as he descends into madness, his terrifying ferocity is unleashed. Mr. McCabe plays with us readers very well by putting us in Francie's lightning-quick mind and never letting us out. Francie is exhausting, humorous and the most Attention Deficient child you will ever meet. I felt a terrible sorrow for Francie, so much so I wanted to command events. I wanted to say "Not. One. More. Bad. Thing!" The child has had enough horrible things happen to him! But Mr. McCabe had his own story to tell. A gripping, marvelous, draining, exhilarating, tale. I'll never forget Francie!
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book
Review: I read this book years ago and it remains amongst my top 5 of all time. When I was reading this, I felt like I was truly in the mind of an insane person. I love the way McCabe slowly unfolds the situations Francie is in so that you only see them for what they are after the deed is done, really giving you a feel for what Francie is going through himself, really making your realize he's absolutely insane without just out and saying it.
And the pig toll tax! I'm thinking of starting a pig toll tax on my own block.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and Tragic
Review: I truly recommend this book. Very well written and original. I've reread it more than 10 times, yet never feel satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: Never seen the movie. I review the book.
Review: I've never seen the movie, which is strange because I'm Irish. But i loved the book. It had elements of The Catcher in the Rye and the works of John Steinbeck. It also must have been a massive influence on Vernon God Little (DBC Pierre does live in Ireland). There seems to be a strain of this kind of literature in recent years, and while there are better books out there, it is such a strong strain of literature that there is no harm in reading all the books. I read this straight through, and some of it was hillarious. I think it could have had a better editor though.
Rating:
Summary: Sheep, Cows, Pigs
Review: If living in Monaghan doesn't make you criminally insane, living with the likes of Francie's parents (one a baking fiend and the other a sad holder of a spirits clerkship first class) surely will. Francie's cracked, there's no doubt about that. The brilliance of this book lies in McCabe's deft handling of that revelation, in his skill of making his warped narrator likeable even as he becomes almost irredeemably pathological. Francie's description of an Irish songbook reveals the loveable boy inside the monster. And while Mrs. Nugent probably isn't all that bad, if young Brady thinks she's a cow, well, then you're inclined to believe him. Revitalizing first person narration, McCabe elicits terror and sympathy in the same sentence. Memorable reading to be sure.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and frightening
Review: Patrick McCabe's novel "The Butcher Boy" is in many respects a masterpiece of voice appropriation. Narrated by the protagonist Francie Brady in a distinctive Irish vernacular, the narrative pulls the reader along with its impulsive energy and wacky flights of humour. Francie's world is not a happy one; it is filled with loss and death and the ignominy of having his neighbours regard him as something less than human. In the end, though a fugitive and a social outcast, Francie avoids despair, overcomes his losses, and relishes his revenge. Nominated for the Booker Prize, this novel is a must read for anyone interested in the kind of fiction that confronts the squalid horrors of modern life head on.
Rating:
Summary: Catcher in the Rye meets Clockwork Orange
Review: Perhaps the only psycotic killer I've ever felt deeply sorry for. McCabe's character, Francie, by an unlucky twist of events, becomes a demented but humorously scatter-brained lost youth; a Holden Caufield on acid, with a bent for violence. Skillful and subtle foreshadowing on McCabes part will keep you plowing through this book, because even though you can usually guess what's going to happen next, you can't wait to hear it from the mouth of the impetuous and pitiable Francie. The narrative by the story's protagonist makes this such a wonderful read. The writing style, minimalist puctuation and all, lends something to the story, but don't try reading this one out loud to a friend. I did, and it was a stumbling effort. Many sentences must be read twice to find the hidden sentece breaks. This is a fantastic book. You'll finish it and wish it was longer. If you like it as much as I did, you'll probably enjoy his other earlier books and and his latest, Carn. You'd probably also enjoy Cormac McCarthy's writing, Especially Child of God and Outer Dark
Rating:
Summary: The Surrealistic Place Between Sanity and Insanity
Review: Set is a rural Irish town in the early 1960s, The Butcher Boy is a beautiful and disturbing novel that tells the tale of "the incredible Francie Brady," a lonely Irish teenager who has, at best, a tenuous grasp on reality. A series of crushing personal loses, are causing Francie to slowly descend into madness, into the world of the true psychopath. In an irrational attempt to fix blame on someone for the cruelties which have befallen him, Francie makes a local woman, Mrs. Nugent, the target of his scathing and sardonic wit, his growing anger, and finally, his shocking violence. This is a tale of the surrealistic space that lies between sanity and insanity and Francie is the mythical changeling. Despite its exceptionally depressing subject matter, The Butcher Boy is darkly comic and Francie's resilient, callous and savage first-person narrative, devoid of much traditional punctuation, impels the reader at a breakneck speed. Francie gives nicknames to people, places and things and speaks in his own brand of Irish slang. The book is a little claustrophobic in feel because we observe Francie's descent into madness from the inside, without realizing that we are going there. We unwittingly embrace his warped point of view and are able to sympathize with him and weep for him even though we absolutely cannot condone what he does. It's a rather hallucinatory novel, a patchwork-quilt of B-movie aliens, comic strip logic and even visions of the Virgin Mary. It's a wild ride between sentimentality and the Grand Guignol; a place where real and rational explanations of the world simply aren't good enough. Although this is an Irish novel, you won't find any politics in this book. The Butcher Boy is set in a distant, apolitical Ireland of the past, all to the good. Politics would only confuse the issues here. Francie's world in an ambiguous, ambivalent one of religious fanaticism and Irish mysticism, two things that no doubt contribute to Francie's deteriorating mental state. The ending of the book is a little surprising and is the only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five. It really doesn't seem in keeping with the character of Francie that McCabe worked so diligently to build. I felt a little let down, a little out of place. But make no mistake, The Butcher Boy is a highly disturbing book. It is an intimate look at a mind-gone-wrong, but it is extremely well-written and highly original. There are no cookie-cutter characters or plot lines here. As the Virgin Mary says to Francie, "Don't go bothering your head about it. The world goes one way and we go another." That is certainly true for The Butcher Boy as well.
Rating:
Summary: in praise of the butcher boy..
Review: Somewhat surprised that so many of the comments here are negative. Maybe Francie's "voice" in the book doesn't speak to everyone, but it spoke to me like no other book I've read (corny as this might sound to some of you) since I read "Catcher in the Rye" as a young man. I did wonder after reading this book how it would translate, whether it would find an audience outside Ireland, whether somebody in, say, America or England would actually "get" this book. On reading some of these comments it seems like many just didn't get it. Of course it's a completely subjective thing and the last thing I'm going to tell you is that you're all you're wrong if you hated the book. But, and I find it very difficult to describe exactly how I feel about this book, I grew up in a town like Francie, and what McCabe has captured in this, what he understands more than anyone else I've ever read, is that dark, surreal side of the rural Irish psyche. As I read it I felt like I was discovering a voice I'd always been searching for, hearing a story I always wanted told and one I understood implicitly. And it was a great release. To me this is a more important book than anything else that has come out of Ireland in the last 15/20 years...including stuff most people readily lap up like Roddy Doyle and Frank McCourt (though they are talented writers). That's why I feel strongly about seeing it dismissed as rubbish by some of the other reviewers here. To me this astonishing book is McCabe's best work, better than Breakfast on Pluto which gets a 5 star rating on this site..though I would also wholeheartedly recommend The Dead School.
|
