This is a rites-of-passage novel of great quality set in Belfast in
the 1960s. It begins with 17-year-old Martin Brennan being sent by
his poor mother on a silent Catholic retreat. There his prayers are
hoped to be a worthwhile investment to help him pass his looming
exams which he had failed the year before. Exams, girls, sex,
religion, and one's place in life, themes which emerge throughout
Martin's adolescence, are written about in a slow and intimate
pace. Martin, a totally bad liar, and his two friends Kavanagh and
Blaise steal and photograph the exam papers - and get away with it,
the event portrayed not as a crime but, especially from Martin's
point of view, as despair at the fateful power exams have in one's
life. The relationships between priests and boys, some good, some
embarrasingly unhealthy, also feature. And the three young men
spend a good deal of their time fantasizing about girls. Martin
ends up working as a technician in the Anatomy School of the
University, where he has his first sexual experience. The book
captivates, because the author gets so wholly inside the minds of
these young men, offering a slice of male-adolescent life that
oozes integrity and accuracy. Although liberally peppered with
obscenities, these are not gratuitous, but very much part of the
conversations one might overhear among young men of that time.
There's an innocence about the book, and great sympathy with the
characters. A light touch, coupled by flawless dialogue and pace,
set it apart from other novels of this type. (Kirkus UK)
This is the story of the growing up of Martin Brennan, a troubled boy in troubled times, a boy who knows all the questions but none of the answers. This is Belfast in the late sixties. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science and sex; he must learn the value of friendship; but most of all he must pass his exams - at any cost. A book that celebrates the desire to speak and the need to say nothing, The Anatomy School moves from the enforced silence of Martin's Catholic school retreat, through the hilarious tea-and-biscuits repartee of his eccentric elders to the awkward wit and loose profanity of his two friends - the charismatic Kavanagh and the subversive Blaise Foley.
An absorbing, tense and often very funny novel which takes Martin from the initiations of youth to the devoutly-wished-for consummation of the flesh, Bernard MacLaverty's new book is a remarkable re-creation of the high anxieties and deep joys of learning to find a place in the world.
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