The Butcher Boy

When Mrs Mulholland next door asked me what I thought about this book I said "It's a load of old shite Mrs Mulholland." No I didn't I said It's alright. But what I was really thinking was this book is really dark and funny.
It's quite scary really. I was a bit like the boy Francie when I was about

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8. I loved comics and I was jealous of a kid who had nice parents and toys and stuff and I battered shite out of him. I grew out of it and I haven't got mental health problems but I know people who are proper psychos because they are really bitter about their upbringing.

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Leave The paper to pick you next read and like me you may find yourself reading a disturbing as fuck, scary as hell, beautiful jewel like this… in other words… this books creepy but awesome! and fun ontop of that!

Can children be evil? In literature this is certainly the case. I am reminded of the evil little girl, Rhoda Penmark, in The Bad Seed by William March. In Patrick McCabe's third novel we have a rival for Rhoda with Francie Brady. It is a journey into the heart of darkness: the mind of a desperately

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troubled kid one step away from madness and murder. Francie Brady is a schoolboy in a small town in Ireland. His father is a mean drunk and his mother a slovenly housekeeper, but Francie has a good buddy, Joe Purcell, and their Tom-and-Huck friendship is what sustains him. Then a seemingly trivial incident alters the landscape: Francie and Joe con the very proper Philip Nugent out of his prize collection of comic books, and Philip's mother calls the Bradys ``pigs.''
Like many of Edgar Allan Poe's narrators, Francie will blame all his troubles on someone else, in his case Mrs. Nugent; it doesn't help that the Nugent household is a cozy haven, maddeningly out of his reach. Matters rapidly deteriorate. His mother enters a mental hospital. Francie runs away to Dublin; he returns to find that his ma, whom he had promised never to let down, has drowned herself. He breaks into the Nugents' house, defecates on the carpet, is sent to reform school, and (the unkindest cut) loses Joe to Philip Nugent. Francie tells us all of this in a voice that is the novel's greatest triumph--a minimally punctuated but always intelligible flow of razor-sharp impressions, name-calling, self-loathing, pop-culture detritus culled from comic books and John Wayne movies (the time is 1962), all delivered with the assurance of a stand-up comic.
We see in this story the longing for childhood innocence, now lost forever, and just an inkling of the gathering mental darkness that will lead to an inevitable denouement. Reminiscent of Salinger and Sillitoe, McCabe has created something all his own--an uncompromisingly bleak vision of a child who retains the pathos of a grubby urchin even as he evolves into a monster not unlike some of those that issue from Poe's imagination. His novel is a tour de force.

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I found The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe a powerful, engrossing and disturbing read. Young Francie Brady never really stood a chance at having a normal life. His father spent all his time in the local, drinking and feeling sorry for himself for how his life had turned out. Francie’s mother, whom

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he loved very much, had emotional problems and at one point is taken off to the ‘mad-house’. After his parents have a particular nasty fight, Francie runs away. He makes it to Dublin, but misses his mother, his friends and his village and so returns. He buys a present for his mother, hoping that will make her happy. Unfortunately, while he was gone his mother had killed herself. His father tells him it was Francie’s fault that she did this and he responds by withdrawing further into his violent fantasy world.

He takes against one particular family; in particular the mother, Mrs. Nugent and her son, Philip, but it’s obvious that he longs to have his mother back and in such a close, caring and safe relationship. As his obsession grows stronger, Francie’s behavior gets worse and worse until he crosses the line from mischief to madness. A spell in reform school under the care of priests only served to make him worse. When he gets back home, he picks up a job at the local butcher’s, which of course, doesn’t help. The author never uses quotation marks so I found I had to read carefully to figure out who was talking, also Francie was so into his strange visions that the reader had to figure out what was really taking place and what was just happening in his head. Even with these difficulties, this is a book that I am glad that I didn’t miss.

The Butcher Boy was a violent, pitiful, sometimes funny and exhausting read. I felt almost traumatized by being placed in Francie’s mind and experiencing the blurring of his reality taking form. You can’t help but feel compassion for this young man even as he shocks and revolts you. The content of Francie’s mind is horrific, but his inner voice can be quite funny. In the end you are left wondering if things would have been different if this boy had only been nurtured on love and hope instead of indifference and despair. This will definitely be a book that I will remember as much for it’s uniqueness as for it’s unrelenting darkness.

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This dark and disturbing book won the 1992 Irish Times-Aer Lingus Prize. The main character, Francie, is a young boy with a VERY disfunctional family. McCabe writes straight from Francie's stream of consciousness, sometimes confusing, and usually twisted. The novel shows Francie's increasing mental

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instability and downward spiral into violence.

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This is a wonderful novel that charts the disintegration of an intelligent, all-too-conscious of his declasse position, even within the confines, or maybe, more pronounced because of, his living in a small village. A strange likeability hovers around the main character. I don't know if other

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readers might agree, and this is certainly not meant as a criticism, McCabe's novel overtly pays homage to that 1950s classic of the clever youth Caulfield's retelling their story in first-person narrative, 'The Catcher in the Rye'.

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Disturbing as all h***. Hard to finish, but amazing and scary-sad.

Follows the life of a young boy after trauma with a great end to piece it all together.

The narration just got on my nerves. I understand McCabe's interest in using grammar as a way to flesh-out the youth and fragility of Francie, but I think it would have been more effective (i.e. less scatter-brained) had he not done so.

Also, the concept of a troubled Irish youth isn't exactly

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ground breaking material. To put it diplomatically: a good book that I read at the wrong time.

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The narration just got on my nerves. I understand McCabe's interest in using grammar as a way to flesh-out the youth and fragility of Francie, but I think it would have been more effective (i.e. less scatter-brained) had he not done so.

Also, the concept of a troubled Irish youth isn't exactly

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ground breaking material. To put it diplomatically: a good book that I read at the wrong time.

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A very disturbing book about a boy's descent into obsession, mental illness, and murder. I'm surprised I ever read another Patrick McCabe book after this. As hard as this book is to read though, McCabe is a brilliant writer. Just be prepared to see what it's like inside the mind of a child

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psychopath.

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I don't have anything to say about this book. I read it, and that was all. It obviously wants to elicit a reaction to the actions of its hyperviolent protagonist, but except from a couple occasions, I rarely did. I didn't like him, I didn't dislike him, he was just there. As was the book.

I would give this book 10 stars if I could. An utterly brilliant evocation of social and mental isolation. Emotionally gripping. Wildly imaginative. Funny, brutal, and heartbreaking. I will reread this one. One of my new all-time favorites.

Last year the Booker prize winner was Milkman by Anna Burns and what a disappointing read that proved to be. Set in Belfast this was a book of gossip told in the first person by "middle sister" in a very claustrophobic and confusing style. Why should I tell you this? quite simply it is only to draw

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a comparison between a book that did not deserve the prize and a book published in 1992 that was Booker shortlisted but did not win....and what a pity it didn't......

The Butcher Boy is a highly entertaining tour de force novel set in a small Irish Village. The prose is direct and very similar in style to The Wasp Factory by Ian Banks where the main character is also the narrator. In The Butcher Boy our narrator is Francie Brady probably best described as a bit of a scallywag, a good-for-nothing who with his best friend Joe spend their days in a carefree way more an inconvenience to the residents than a real threat. When they make the acquaintance of a local lad Philip Nugent and act in a somewhat dishonest way, refusing to return his comics, Mrs Nugent steps in to rescue the situation and in so doing changes the life of not only Francie but indirectly hers which is only revealed when the book concludes.

This is a startling novel giving great insight into life in a small Irish community in the early 1960s. Through the eyes of Francie we soon become acquainted with the somewhat joie de vivre attitude of the locals none more accommodating than Brady himself. However the second part of the novel displays a bitter and disturbing series of events; events that will have a long reaching affect on not only our narrator but an unsuspecting target. What starts off as a jovial account suddenly changes direction with impromptu violence and a very dark ending, with echoes of Charles Manson. Along the way it is easy to see how it only takes a little act to upset the balance of peace and how such an act can have deadly consequences...nothing is what it seems, people are not what they seem...With a very snappy dialogue that crackles along the book deserves to be read in one sitting..."He had a big breeze block of a head and a pair of eyebrows like two slugs trying to stand up"...."it was funny that face it slowly grew over the other one until one day you looked and the person you knew was gone."....."Oh ma I said the whole house is burning up on us then a fist made of smoke hit me a smack in the mouth its over says ma its all over now".....Highly recommended.

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"A Beckett monologue with a plot by Alfred Hitchcock", 18 June 2015

This review is from: The Butcher Boy: Picador Classic (Paperback)
Narrated by the seriously disturbed - yet curiously empathetic - Francie Brady, as he recalls his youth: "When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I

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lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent."
The narrative covers around four years, during which time Francie's dysfunctional family life (mother having a breakdown, father a drunk) completely comes to an end. The only stability in his life is his friend Joe - their friendship harks back to an innocent time. But Joe is turning away from Francie's extreme behaviour; growing up, no longer interested in comic books. Worse, he is hanging out with middle class Philip Nugent, on whose family - most particularly his mother - Francie's mind has come round to pinning all his woes.
Strange, delusional yet extremely compelling read.

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I had seen the movie version of this book before reading it. And although I don't remember the movie entirely, it did prepare me for some of what to expect. I imagine going into this one cold would be a bit of a wild ride.

We're thrust into the mind of Francie Brady, a young Irish boy who lives in a

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troubled home. In short order, we start to realize that Francie himself is a bit troubled. I feel like this book defies description or pinning down. It is sometimes horrifying, sometimes funny, often confusing. Francie's view of things is often unreliable, and his disordered mind isn't the easiest to spend time in. But the book manages to dance enough on the edges that it pulls you back in just when you think things are going to become completely unbearable. Still, it's not a book for the genteel crowd.

Recommended for: fans of Requiem for a Dream, A Clockwork Orange, people who like their humor black.

Quote: "I says I will ma and she says I know you will son and then we'd just sit for hours sometimes just staring into the firegate only there never was a fire ma never bothered to light one and I wasn't sure how to go about it. I said what fire do we want its just as good sitting here staring into the ashes."

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Cult following which I do not share.

Getting started with the book was a challenge. The stream of conscious, dialect, and unreliable narrator made for much initial confusion. But I started to work it all out and get used to it by about a quarter of the way in. It was worth the effort.

Francie is a very memorable character and being

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inside his head he entire book you really get to know him. By the end I just felt so sad for him. If I had read about his story in the news I would not have had much empathy. McCabe really makes it hit home what it might be like living with serious mental illness, no to mention in life circumstances that make management and recovery nearly impossible.

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"All the beautiful things in this world are lies. They count for nothing in the end."

Set in a small town in the early 1960's Ireland 'The Butcher Boy' is a hybrid of first-person narrative and stream of consciousness told by Francis 'Francie' Brady, also known as the 'pig boy'.

We first meet Francie

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hiding out "in hole under a tangle of briars" whilst being hunted by the police "on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent." It is only much later that we learn what his actual crime was.

The only child of an alcoholic father and a mother driven mad by despair, as his troubled home life collapses Francie retreats into a fantasy world. Sexually abused whilst at a Catholic reform school, ridiculed by his neighbour Mrs. Nugent, when he is dropped by his best friend Joe Purcell who has outgrown their boyhood mischief in favour of Mrs. Nugent’s son, Philip, Francie finally finds a target for his twisted rage. This novel chronicles 'the pig boy’s' chilling loss of innocence and descent into tragedy and madness.

Written in the regional vernacular it initially takes a bit of getting used to but once I did I found its rhythm strangely compelling that seemed to match Francie's deteriorating mental state really well. My feelings towards Francie were constantly shifting; at times I pitied him, at times I despaired of him and would have liked to have got my own hands upon him. One New York Times critic described the book as “part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield, part Hannibal Lecter” and its hard to disagree with that assessment. This novel is certainly dark but there are also touches of humour. I cannot say in truth that I actually enjoyed it but that may have something to do with the subject matter, however I still found it a remarkable piece of writing that is likely to live in the memory.

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Francie Brady lives in a small town in Ireland, likes comics and is regarded as a bit of a ne'er do well.

I read Butcher Boy last century, and it’s still as grueling, perhaps more so in audio. Still it’s brilliantly written. Not for the faint-hearted