The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe Review

Small town Ireland in the early 1960s and young Francie Brady is enjoying his yoof, horsing around with his best mate Joe, knocking off school, and generally being an incorrigible roustabout. Except an older Francie is narrating this story and he apparently did something to a perceived enemy of his, Mrs Nugent…

I didn’t hate Patrick McCabe’s novel The Butcher Boy but there’s not much about it I liked all that much either. The lack of a strong story is keenly felt and Francie’s character and the points McCabe was trying to make got repeated throughout to the point of tedium.

The story is written in the first person, stream-of-consciousness style, so the sentences run on into each other without punctuation. It’s an effective way of learning about Francie’s character - his childish perspective (the cartoonish names he gives the people in his life), his unreliability as a narrator, his muddled way of thinking, as well as capturing his personality.

Through his eyes, we see how his friend Joe grows up and moves on with his life, progressing through school, meeting girls, etc. - the usual life path many follow - while Francie drops out and remains behind in his simplistic thinking, appalled that the world he loved is no more.

Not knowing much Irish history, but knowing that this novel is award-winning and critically acclaimed, I’d guess that it’s set in the ‘60s because of social unrest in Ireland at the time and Francie represents old Ireland and Joe et al. represents the new Ireland, and the two sides splitting.

Fair enough, but the story is no great shakes, and that’s primarily why I read: to be entertained. The story comes off at times either contrived - the folk song the novel is titled after mentions a suicide and Francie’s mother kills herself early on - or cliched - Francie is abused by a Catholic priest.

The story then just repeats what we already know about his father - he was a rotten alcoholic - and that Francie has been left behind by his old friend. All we have left then is to watch him spiral out, getting nuttier by the page, until the Manson Family-esque finale that’s built up to quite well (Francie’s behaviour becoming increasingly violent by turns).

It’s not the most engaging of narratives and was very easy to put down often, which I did. But I did appreciate the skill with which McCabe put together his story through Francie’s voice and also managed to make him a tragic, almost sympathetic, figure despite the heinous things he does. The Butcher Boy was a novel I admired more for its authors’ writing ability than one I enjoyed reading.