I was knocked out by this stunningly intelligent, compassionate, and mordantly funny debut novel. The Good Son is a brilliant portrait of both political and familial unrest, and Paul McVeigh is a wildly important new talent. -- Laura van den Berg With his debut The Good Son, Paul McVeigh, long a champion of writers, proves himself a writer to be championed. There are flashes of both Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke and Patrick McCabe's Francie Brady in the character of Mickey Donnelly, who cartwheels fully-formed from the very first page, a spirited, exuberant and utterly engaging young narrator. The circumscribed world he inhabits - a few streets in North Belfast at the start of the Troubles - is vivid and fresh, brought fully to life, and McVeigh's ear for the rhythms of his characters' speech is second to none. The Good Son is a coming-of-age story written with a sharp eye and a big heart, and will establish Paul McVeigh as an important new Irish voice with stories to tell. -- Lucy Caldwell A real page-turner. Mickey Donnelly is a brilliant creation - a captivating, complex boy on the cusp of young adulthood. A poignant, devastating, funny, unforgettable read. -- Vanessa Gebbie I meant to dip into The Good Son and ended up reading it all the way through in a matter of days. I love it. It's brilliantly sparky and original, the story trips along effortlessly, the characters are all wonderfully alive and Paul McVeigh has a real ear for the music of dialogue and prose. The Good Son fairly ripples with wicked humour, warmth and coming-of-age wonder. -- Sarah Hilary I opened Paul McVeigh's novel just to get a flavour of it and was then unable to put it down until I'd finished. It was like falling down a rabbit hole. The Good Son reminded me in many ways of Pigeon English - the extraordinary way the voice of the young narrator immediately pulls you into his world, as though that world, dangerous and unforgiving as it is, is the most natural place on earth. From the very first page I knew I was in the hands of an accomplished storyteller, McVeigh's vibrant and irreverent prose carrying along a novel that is both hopeful and big hearted at its core. It deserves to be widely acclaimed and widely read. -- Claire King A vivid, poignant and thrilling tale of troubled boyhood, The Good Son is a lot better than good - it's outstanding. -- Toby Litt Paul McVeigh brilliantly achieves a very difficult thing: he turns a coming of age novel into high art, with complex yearnings. His young Mickey Donnelly navigates the Troubles like Huck Finn navigates the Mississippi River, prematurely becoming a fully-flighted adult and thereby letting us see the human condition through penetratingly fresh eyes. The Good Son is a work of genius from a splendid writer. -- Robert Olen Butler Paul McVeigh has created a strong, unique, and funny protagonist, able to reveal the everyday intricacies and the broader politics of the Troubles in a fresh, engaging way. I fell in love with Mickey Donnelly. -- Sarah Butler Mickey Donnelly is one of those characters you believe in with all your heart. He is a boy who is both confused and astute, both sensitive and brave, and after I'd finished reading, I found I really missed his voice. The Good Son is a robust, funny, and truly charming first novel. -- Alison Moore
Born in Belfast, Paul began his writing career as a playwright and moved to London where he wrote comedy shows, some of which were performed in the West End. Later, he wrote short stories which were published in literary journals and anthologies, commissioned by BBC. He is Director of London Short Story Festival and is working on his debut short story collection. The Good Son is his first novel.
A highly commendable debut, convincing in its realism
*The Independent*
Mickey is the funniest, most endearing human being for whom we feel
huge compassion as he faces each adversity. This novel envelops the
reader with its humanity and its down-to-earth humour leaves you
laughing.
*BookTrust*
It’s about a boy called Mickey who lives in Northern Ireland during
the Troubles. It’s set in the summer holidays in between him
leaving primary school and him starting secondary school. He’s wise
beyond his years. He doesn’t fit in at all in this brutal society.
He likes acting and dancing and he’s creative. You will completely
fall in love with Mickey.
*We Love This Book*
It’s easy to have on the commute. The Good Son is about a
10-year-old boy called Mickey and it’s set during The Troubles in
Northern Ireland. I can’t overstate how much I fell for Mickey as a
voice, he’s one of the most engaging, captivating voices that I’ve
read in a novel this year. So it’s set in the period between
primary school and secondary school, so it’s during his summer
holidays, and Mickey is this clever, compassionate, smart boy who
likes dancing, whose best friend is his little sister, which means
he doesn’t really fit in very well in quite a brutal, violent
society that he lives in ... His voice is so warm and the book is
so funny, quite dark humour. You will completely fall in love with
this voice.
*David Prever at Drivetime, BBC Radio Oxford*
The Good Son is bursting with action, love, loss, betrayal and so
much more – it is the sort of book you pick up and hours later
emerge from, wondering where the time went. Like a fine point
of light, the desire to be loved and accepted drives The Good
Son toward an ending that leaves the reader satisfied, if
somewhat unsettled.
*Culture Northern Ireland*
Paul McVeigh has written a terrific book that uses Northern
Ireland's troubles to give the story tension and backbone. It
is honest, raw, emotional and hilarious. He has filled the
novel with great characters ranging from relatively good to
relatively evil and his use of Mickey as the lynchpin is a triumph.
It is impossible not to love this kid and how he thinks about and
copes with his struggles. To repeat myself, the book crackles with
comedy and drama, excellent dialogue and a conclusion that, as the
blurb rightly says, underlines the notion – sometimes you have
to be a bad boy to be a good son.
*Dropped the Moon Blog*
His depiction of the time and place – collecting for the black
babies, roller discos up the Falls – and the peculiarities of NI
vernacular – gazing at girls’ diddies, hoping for a lumber – is
transportingly vivid. The effect is often very funny and then
touching; the injustice of a line spent half in fear, the pleasure
of a life lived half in laughter.
*The Big Issue*
The Good Son delivers a real sense of a damaged child within a
broken family constrained by his society, while also presenting a
refreshing portrait of the troubles through the eyes of one of the
most beguiling and endearing narrators I have encountered in a long
time. McVeigh and The Good Son are destined for prizes.
*Structo Magazine*
The summer holidays are a time of dread for Mickey Donnelly.
Secondary education is looming, but the prohibitive cost of the
grammar school uniform has deprived him of his best chance to
escape from Belfast’s turbulent Ardoyne neighbourhood. This isn’t
the only cloud hanging over the delightful narrator of Paul
McVeigh’s debut novel, however: The Good Son’s early-80s backdrop
is one of poverty, paranoia and violence, both sectarian and
domestic, a terrifying world for a boy whose best friend is his
little sister and whose favourite film is The Wizard of Oz.
*The Guardian*
McVeigh’s debut novel The Good Son (Salt publishing, April 2015) is
a triumph of vivid recall, a wrenching-off of the protective scabs
that I, and many like me, have allowed to grow over the wounds of
an upbringing in the sectarian streets of Northern Ireland during
the Troubles. With a good dose of survivor guilt, and a shame-faced
glance in the direction of IS and Boko Haram, we mutter to
ourselves, “It wasn’t really that bad.” The Good Son is a swift and
savage reminder that for so many of my countrymen and women, it
really was that bad and there is little need for exaggeration.
*Writing.ie*
Books of the Month: The Good Son is a truly affecting and absorbing
novel. It not only explores the personal journey Mickey goes on
during the summer months before he starts secondary school but it
also offers a eye opening social commentary on the Troubles. It is
quite horrific to see how apathetic and numb Mickey and his
community have become to the house raids, bombs and murders they
witness on a frequent basis, especially now that we have garnered
some distance from this tense period in Northern Irish history.
Although only his debut novel, The Good Son perfectly illustrates
what a masterful storyteller Paul McVeigh is and I personally can’t
wait to see what he does next.
*Ulster Tatler*
Considering the strong emotional attachment that McVeigh forces us
to feel towards his hero, it would be tempting to allow him a fairy
tale ending similar to the films and TV shows he obsesses over.
However the story to the very end remains true to the complex
characters and messy realities of Mickey's life, and while some
small happiness seems to prevail he is no less conflicted than he
was in the beginning. While there are a few reasons for celebration
Mickey doesn't escape the story unscathed, and his youthful
innocence is replaced by a sad and adult realisation that “no
miracles are coming out of the sky.” The story of a young boy and
his family's negotiation of the Troubles would be a satisfying
enough experience for a reader, yet McVeigh successfully manages to
carry this already weighted subject further. The Good Son goes
beyond surface politics and stereotypes of Northern Ireland, and is
instead an impressive and insightful novel about the inextricable
nature of guilt and innocence.
*The Incubator*
With this first novel, McVeigh has set himself a high standard.
Despite its horrors, The Good Son has a warm heart, and had this
reader hoping against hope that somehow Mickey will survive and
will carry his integrity and love through his teenage years and
into adulthood.
*The Tablet*
Mickey Donnelly’s voice still rings loud and shrill in my ears,
weeks after reading The Good Son. His painful negotiation of the
physical and psychic battlefields of late childhood and 1980s
Belfast; his whip-crack analyses of the vagaries and vicissitudes
of the explosive adult world; his disappointments and heartbreaks
and adventures, form a vibrant yet strangely gentle chorus in my
memory. It’s one of those books that’s written in such an
accomplished and natural way that it seems not like a book at all,
but a perfect, fully-formed rendering of reality through another’s
eyes. It’s a triumph of storytelling, an absolute gem.
*Donal Ryan*
The book is a fantastic and moving journey into the mind of a young
boy who knows he is different and is trying to make sense of
himself and the difficult world around him. Through Mickey’s first
person narration, we gain a vivid insight into the atmosphere of
the Troubles and their impact on everyday family and community
life.
*British Council Literature Blog*
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