A beautifully written and intimate story of family and community, set in 1970s Donegal.

When a baby boy washes ashore in a barrel, he’s taken in by local fisherman Ambrose Bonnar, his wife Christine, and their son Declan. Spanning several decades, the story follows the family's struggles with hardship and financial upheaval, whilst exploring the intense sibling-like rivalry that soon develops between the two boys.

This is a book about the ties that bind us, about belonging and connection. Garrett Carr adopts the collective narrative voice of the town, weaving a sense of interconnectedness throughout the novel. Through this unusual perspective, the shifting dynamics and changing fortunes of the Bonnar family are observed and retold over time.

Life within this small fishing community, facing an uncertain future with the move towards a more commercial, industrialised way of working, is skilfully and sensitively portrayed. The story perfectly captures the slow erosion of tradition in the face of modernity through it’s profound effect on both the Bonnar family and the wider community around them.

I can already predict that this is going to be one of my favourite books this year. It’s an utterly captivating read, with sharp yet understated humour and truly unforgettable characters. Not to be missed!

The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr is a poignant and introspective novel that explores the complexity of family, identity, and the ever-shifting tides of life in a close-knit community. Set on the rugged west coast of Ireland in 1973, the story begins with the mysterious discovery of a baby abandoned on a beach. The baby, later named Brendan by the fisherman Ambrose Bonnar who adopts him, becomes the heart of a gripping family saga that spans two decades.

The novel paints a vivid portrait of a community that is both captivated and perplexed by Brendan. His arrival disrupts the quiet rhythms of the town and the life of Ambrose’s family, starting with his wife Christine, who feels a deep sense of love for Brendan but also an underlying worry about what his presence means for their own family dynamics. For their son Declan, Brendan’s arrival marks the beginning of a rivalry that will endure throughout their lives. Despite the love Ambrose has for the boy, the decision to bring Brendan into their home ultimately causes a fracture in the family, setting the stage for the conflicts and emotional turmoil that will define the story.

The novel unfolds over the course of two decades, offering a layered exploration of how a single event—a baby found on the beach—can alter the course of many lives. Brendan’s restless spirit, as he grapples with his place in the world, is mirrored by Ambrose’s own internal struggle. Ambrose, a man more at home on the sea than on land, finds himself facing a challenge that calls him to understand his family in ways he never expected. As the years go on, the relationships between Ambrose, Christine, Declan, and Brendan evolve, and each character is forced to confront their own insecurities, desires, and disappointments.

At its core, The Boy from the Sea is a story about finding one’s identity in a world that constantly changes. Brendan’s journey is not just a physical one; it is a search for meaning, a quest to understand where he belongs in a world that feels both familiar and alien. His story is one of alienation, but also one of connection, as he inadvertently becomes a mirror for the people around him, reflecting both their hopes and their fears. In this way, the boy from the sea becomes a symbol for the larger changes taking place in the community and in the world at large.

Atmospheric, characters that sing from the page and such a well defined sense of place. I really enjoyed this book, the writing is wonderful, I was fully invested in the story and loved the sprinkles of humour that balanced the sadder elements. This is a real coming of age tale, of what it means to be family and how important community is. Highly recommend.

This is a debut that centres on an extended family in a small fishing town on the coast of Ireland. When the town is rocked by the mysterious appearance of a baby on the shoreline, the community springs in to action. Taken in by the Bonnars, we follow the boy from the sea, named Brendan, and his family over 20 years as the town continues to be fascinated by the foundling.

This is one of those books where the people are the main plot. It draws you in, particularly as it is mainly told in the first person plural from the perspective of the townspeople. This felt particularly effective for me as it gave a sense of the reader belonging to the narrative, as if the story could be being relayed orally over coffee. It established a real closeness with both the setting and the characters that, I felt, gave the book a greater depth and weight. Although set in a very specific place and community, it felt almost familiar.

Alongside the interplay of family dynamics and consideration of the true meaning of family ties, Carr expertly weaves in examination of deep topics. Grief, conflict and the impact of encroaching modernity on the traditional way of life, all are tackled subtlety and without detracting from the tale being told. These issues are dealt with on a human level, their impact shown through the very real bearing they have on the Bonnars and the townspeople.

This is a warm novel, it’s cosy in the best sense of the word. It had echoes of Small Things Like These for me, in the way that it centred on ordinary people in a small town, but with an undercurrent of deep humanity. Somehow, the novel felt transporting. The descriptions are vivid and detailed, though not overdone, and reading it felt like stepping away from reality for a brief time.

Irish fiction rarely misses for me, and this most certainly did not.

An interesting story of family dynamics set in a rural fishing community .
A child is found on the beach and Ambrose Bonnar is drawn to the child, convincing his wife to adopt the boy. The Boy from the Sea follows Brendan and the Bonnar family through the 70's and 80's. I enjoyed the chapters written frim the perspective of the community, giving a good insight into how communities like this work.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read The Boy from the Sea.

I loved this novel. The writing was superb and totally captured the people, town and countryside around Donegal.on the West coast of Ireland. A baby is found on the beach and taken in by a family within the town. This is a story of family and community, of love and loss, jealousy and belonging told over a period of 18 years. This novel drew me in and made me fall in love with the characters despite all their flaws. I never thought I would find the development to the fishing industry on the West Coast of Island so enthralling but I did. A fabulous debut and I can’t wait to read more from this author .One of my books of the year. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

It’s hard to believe ‘The boy from the sea’ is a debut! Not at all what I expected from the blurb - but far reached any expectations. It’s a truly beautifully crafted novel, bittersweet and without any pretension, spanning two decades of the Bonnan’s family saga. The writing is mellifluous, lyrical and truly mesmerising - and definitely going to a huge hit.

I particularly enjoyed the acute attention to family nuances and dynamics. I also learnt a great deal about the precarious lives of Irish trawler men, and admired the strength of community which came from their connections and lives governed by the sea. Sea lore pervades throughout, as indeed the novel is centred around the mystical arrival of ‘the boy from the sea’, a tiny baby (Brendan) found abandoned in a barrel on the sea shore, but the harsh realities of life prevails over myth.

Huge thanks to Netgalley for an ARC. I’ll be recommending this novel far and wide!

This hauntingly beautiful story of two 'brothers', living on the coast in 1970s Ireland, is the debut novel of Garrett Carr. He has a wonderfully evocative tone - you can smell the sea on these pages - and a pitch perfect sense of place. The relationship between Declan and Brendan is the heart of this novel which begins when Brendan is found in a barrell on the coast and adopted by Declan's parents and made part of the family. It is in many ways a gentle novel, full of sorrow and yet also hopeful, and one that worms it's way into your heart so effortlessly. I loved this, and am excited to read what Carr does next.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Rhythmic fable of community and rivalry
—
Told in a storyteller’s rhythmic omniscient point of view, an unnamed baby arrives in a close-knit Irish fishing community in a seaborne barrel, his strange entrance immediately captivating the villagers. As the entire village rallies around the baby, Ambrose Bonnar, local fisherman and father himself, takes in the boy and names him Brendan. Ambrose’s son Declan doesn’t understand why another child has suddenly appeared in the family home. Over the next twenty years, through the seventies and eighties, as Declan’s rivalry hardens against the thoughtful Brendan, the village ebbs and flows in the wake of greater events, the currents of today’s news and modern history.

A book about community—the ties that bind—and rivalry—within families and with friends and competitors—this book is steeped in its fishing community on the Atlantic coast of the Republic. With a magical realist tint to the strongly Irish feel to the prose—the rhythm, the idioms, the details—this book evokes a village and its messy relationships, where tempers may flare, or passions run wild, but knowing full well that they still have to see each other the next day. Using a clever writerly trick of never coming too close to hearing Brendan’s internal voice, the book manages to place him at its centre without piercing his initial mystery.

A haunting book: four stars.

A beautifully crafted atmospheric novel about a baby washing up in a Donegal fishing village and the family who adopt him. The length and breadth of human emotion is contained in this novel, the writing is lyrical and full of feeling. The story is narrated by an unnamed member of the tight knit community, an onlooker to the Bonnar Family’s life over two decades. An impressive fiction debut and a story I’ll remember. Must-read.

Thanks, @netgalley, for the ARC.

This is a beautiful story set in rural Ireland that follows the many hardships of the Bonnar family through the eyes of a very tight-knit community.
It is full of charm,wit, and humour and is very well written, and there is great depth to the characters. It really portrays the hardships faced by fishermen and the fishing industry during the 1970s and 80s, but with a real family feel to it a well.
Overall, it was a very good book and worth a read.

Beautifully written book, such a lyrical way of writing. It flowed like a great conversation, easy to read, hard to put down

The trials and tribulations of the fishing community wrapped around the relationships within a family.
Quite a gentle tale of a boy adopted by a fisherman and resented by the natural son.

A foundling is found floating in a barrel in the sea in rural.Ireland. Locals call him the Boy From the Sea and his story becomes almost mythical.

The baby is taken in by a fishing family who already have a toddler son. Renaming him Brendan, the Bonnar family treat him as their own and bring him up alongside their biological son Declan. Unfortunately Delcan harbours resentment towards his adopted brother and over the years this causes a lot of friction.

The book follows the family as the boys grow up and is an interesting insight into the culture of rural Irish fishing communities in the 1980s and the challenges faced in a changing society.

Wirtten from the perspective of the locals, it is almost a fly on the account. An emotional, thought-provoking and down to earth story

"Christine reckoned she had a solid twenty-five years of matriarch left in her and she'd always use it to direct Declan towards sources of self-esteem. If no good source was available she'd at least make sure he was occupied. As a fisherman, Declan would probably stay in Donegal and continue to live at home until he married and that would be fine, she'd keep an eye on him until then and maybe beyond if his wife was the meek sort."

To give the basics, a baby found abandoned on a beach is shared among the town at first but ends up coming home with Ambrose and Christine. They already have a son, Declan, who bitterly resents the newcomer, named Brendan by Ambrose, the more so as life goes on and Brendan exhibits strange behaviours, becoming feted as almost saint-like for a while and getting a bit too big for his boots. Will the brothers always be in conflict? Meanwhile Christine's sister Phyllis also has cause for bitterness as she's left at home (just up the road) caring for their elderly and difficult father. This is all set against the background of the fishing industry, with Ambrose and his best friend Tommy in business together with a small fishing boat at the start of the book in 1973 and their fortunes dividing as the industry changes.

Although this is being touted as Carr's first novel, he's actually written three YA books and a work of non-fiction, and he teaches creative writing, so he's by no means a newbie, and that shows. While it's deceptively simple in its language, the structure and voice is very technically interesting, hopping forwards in time, always understandable, and shifting between the third person internal narratives of the main characters and the first person plural (we) of the chorus of townspeople who offer narrative, comment and explanations of the culture and traditions. But it's also such a quietly perceptive and emotionally literate read: look at this description of toxic male inarticularcy:

"Ambrose had all the language required to define precisely the meaning of a cloud, the character of a sea, an attitude of rain, but to describe his own emotional weather he was limited to 'Been better,' 'Been worse,' and 'You know yourself.' When Christine first met Ambrose he seemed to have a great way with words but now she knew it was nothing but banter. He'd tell you about himself in a way that seemed spontaneous and open but he only began a story when he knew how it ended."

There are also beautiful, tender scenes of care and caring and a very vivid adventure at sea that had me frantically reading, sure I knew what was going to happen (I didn't).

I loved that Carr thanks the translators in his Acknowledgements, "getting The Boy from the Sea into other languages", as well as the usual publishers, peers and family.

Dare I say it, if you loved Claire Keegan's "Small Things Like These" for its quiet, working-class characters and small town life with an undercurrent of deep morality and humanity, but wanted more than a novella, you will love this.

Publishing review on my blog on 3 March 2025 to coincide with Reading Ireland Month: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/03/03/book-review-garrett-carr-the-boy-from-the-sea/

The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr was a lovely book set in 1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, when a baby was found abandoned on the beach. He was named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who found him and and then adopts him with his wife Christine, the baby captivates the whole town from day one.

Christine, falls in love with Brendan when she first see's him. But, for Declan, their son, his new brother’s arrival is the start of a life-long rivalry. Even though Ambrose brings Brendan into his family home, it is a big decision that will fracture his family and force this man who is now more comfortable at sea than on land.

This book was told over two decades, Garrett Carr's the author tells a story of a restless boy trying to find his place in the world and a family fighting to hold itself together. It is a story of ordinary lives made extraordinary, a drama about a community who can’t help but look to the boy from the sea for answers as they face the storm have a rapidly changing world.

This book was a wonderful read from start to finish. A joy to read. I loved it. I loved the book cover, a great eye catcher.

I highly recommend The Boy from the Sea.

SYNOPSIS
In a tight knit but tired fishing community in Donegal a baby boy washes up in a barrel. Ambrose and Christine Bonnar name him Brendan, and raise him alongside their aggrieved biological son, Declan; but Brendan is restless on land constantly trying to find his place in the world, and within his adopted family, whilst the rest of the community look towards this captivating boy for answers. A multi-layered mesmeric story of twisted fates, identity, love and rivalry, of ordinary lives made extraordinary, set in Ireland during the 70s and 80s.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a book that is beautifully written, full of heart, and the warm humour of Donegal. The story waxes and wanes with the tides of the The Bonnar family, which is not smooth sailing as Carr makes many keen observations about hardship and grief that had me highlighting entire passages. Carr’s tender writing made it feel like I was reading about real people with an attention to authenticity that brought a real place to life. I know that I will think often of the Bonnar family long after finishing this book.
I rated this 4.25 stars, and highly recommend this to lovers of literary sagas in particular Irish historical fiction. I would like to thank the publishers Picador Panmacmillan and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

An intimate and moving portrait of an isolated community in Donegal Bay. Our unnamed narrator, a member of this community, recounts changing times and challenges from an insider's point of view.

A baby washes up in a barrel one day and is adopted by Ambrose and his wife Christine. The couple already has a young son, Declan, and he resents the interloper from the beginning.

As the boys grow this resentment deepens as each seek a way to be seen. They crave their father's time and approval, but in trying economic times, attention is all about survival. Ambrose is a fisherman and with quotas and increasing competition for large trawlers, making ends meet becomes increasingly difficult.

The writer captures the sense of community, with its kinship but also its judgement so beautifully. Gossip and rumour spread quickly, but there is support and loyalty as well, something that sadly seems to be in decline as we live increasingly isolated lives. An elegy to the past that removes rose-tinted lenses to reveal the hardships and complexity of people everywhere.

Beautifully written and well told. The story of an abandoned baby and his subsequent life and finding his place in the world

' The Boy From The Sea' is Garrett Carr's wonderful adult debut novel.

It is set in Killybegs, Co Donegal, a fishing village in the northwest of Ireland. In 1973 a baby was found in a barrel on a beach in Donegal. The orphan boy was taken in by the fisherman Ambrose Bonnar and his family. Ambrose and his wife Christine already have a son, Declan, who is a couple of years older. A lifelong rivalry develops between the two brothers.

The story follows the Bonnar family over the next couple of decades when the boys are growing up. It is a tale about the hardship of the life as a fisherman, tough decisions and family bonds.

The novel is written from an unusual perspective. The we-narrator is the people of Killybegs which gives the reader the impression of being immersed in the story and evokes a sense of community.

This is a beautifully and tenderly written book about family, hardship and belonging.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to review the ARC.