The Butcher Boy

Francie Brady is a small-town rascal who spends his days turning a blind eye to the troubles at home and getting up to mischief with his best friend Joe - hiding in the chicken-house, shouting abuse at fish in the local stream. But after a disagreemnt with his neighbour Mrs Nugent over her son's missing comic books, Francie's reckless streak spirals out of control and gives rise to a monstrous obsession... Fearless, shocking and blackly funny, The Butcher Boy won the 1992 Irish Times literature Prize and was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker prize. It is a modern classic of Irish fiction, a portrait of the insidious violence latent in small-town life and of a frenzien young man lashing out at everyone, even himself.