I was interviewed by Claire Savage in Culture Northern Ireland talking about my shortlisting for The Polari Prize.
You can read their review of The Good Son here.
Review
Review of The Good Son
Review of The Good by Gregory Hayman on his blog
I saw this on Facebook and had to share it.
“The book is well crafted with a poetic (in all senses of the word) that infuses every line.”
And the mind-blowing…
“…there is in McVeigh the possibility of becoming the new Edmund White, but a White for the twenty-first century and McVeigh’s sense of restraint in his writing together with a refusal to sentimentalise casts him as a potential literary force to be reckoned with.”
Click here to read the full review.
Currently shortlisted for The Polari Prize
Chosen as Brighton’s City Reads 2016
Shortlisted: The Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker’ Prize
Shortlisted: The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award
Finalist for The People’s Book Prize
ELLE Magazine Best Books of 2015
Wonderful review of The Good Son
Was sent this wonderful review of The Good Son over on Word Herding.
“…wildly funny and vibrant, with Mickey a likeable protagonist, gullible but surprisingly savvy when it counts, heartbreakingly vulnerable and equally heartbreakingly courageous. The relationships ring true in that they’re complex and constantly evolving.
Paul McVeigh is fearless in showing a world in all its unpleasant, gory detail… this is a wonderful, admirable book, tough and tender in equal measures. And it packs so much in that it stays in the mind long after reading.
Towards the end, I actually had to put the book aside for a few days, and then braced myself to read the final chapters with a sense of foreboding. It’s rare to read a book these days the ending of which you simply cannot predict, and this one achieved exactly that. I won’t spoil it for you, but I thought the ending was perfect.”
Interview/Review in Sussex Life
Thank you to Sussex Life for this wonderful interview/review.
“This coming-of-age novel, which evokes classics such as The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, toes the tightrope between tragedy and comedy expertly.”
The Good Son Review – Pank Magazine
A wonderful review of The Good Son by Cath Barton in Pank Magazine. You can read the whole thing here.
“Paul McVeigh navigates the choppy sea of Mickey’s shifting experiences and rapidly-changing emotions with skill and verisimilitude. (he) traces the physical geography of Ardoyne with as much precision as he depicts the geography of the human heart. As a reader you run up and down those streets with Mickey, onto the wastelands where kids sniff glue and bombs explode unpredictably. He navigates the tricky first person narrative style with assurance and peoples the story with vivid characters… they step off the page…
Mickey Donnelly deserves to take his place in the litany of boy literary heroes. Paul McVeigh’s prose sings from page one in the accents of the North Belfast streets, and is rich in detail. While The Good Son does not have the same breadth, it has something of the spirit of Dickens or Zola, transformed for our times. Gritty realism with a human face. Not only is it hugely enjoyable, but it also conveyed to me more of the atmosphere of the Troubles than any number of factual accounts.”
Le Monde Reviews ‘Un bon garçon’
So it looks like Le Monde likes ‘Un bon garcon’ – that’s if google translate actually works lol…
“Paul McVeigh has written a first novel of beautiful generosity, poignant in this delicate manner in which he evokes the brutality of an era. Same (?) writing weaves around the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, the fabric of childhood and adolescence, finely restoring the path of Mickey: a striking fresco, mixing historical upheavals and hardships of a family shattered.”
The Good Son Best of 2015
The Good Son makes another Best of 2015 list – this time from author and book blogger Lindsay Bamfield. Thanks Lindsay.
That makes 2015 quite a year from my debut novel which was…
Shortlisted for The Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker’ Prize.
An ELLE Magazine Best Books of 2015.
The Irish Independent Top Reads of 2015.
One of The Reading Agency Staff Picks Best of 2015.
Wales Arts Review – Fiction of the Year.
A Gransnet Best Christmas Read for 2015.
Savidge Reads and Pam Reader Blogs Books of the Year.
Here’s what Lindsay said: “I’d read about Paul’s debut novel on his blog as well as number of terrific reviews. I was attending the No The Booker event at Big Green Bookshop, so intended to buy a copy. After hearing Paul read an extract I was well and truly hooked. An original and authentic voice that took me there, to Belfast in the 80s, spending a troubled summer with Mickey – wanting him so very much to achieve what he hoped for.”
If you fancy a copy then about the only place with any first print editions left is Waterstones online. Alternatively, you can buy the e-reader edition at Salt. The new print will be available mid-March.
Thanks everyone and hope your new year is going well.
Savidge Reads Reviews The Good Son
Savidge Reads Reviews The Good Son
Book blogger, reviewer, author and founder of The Green Carnation Prize, Simon Savidge, gives a wonderful review of The Good Son on his blog.
“The Good Son is such a brilliant book… unflinching rawness… something I have not experienced before and I thought it was marvellous. It also gives us hope.
McVeigh does many wonderful things with The Good Son and first and foremost of these is the character that he has created with Mickey. McVeigh excels in the use of light and shade within his writing… incredibly powerful… Whilst many novels of the Troubles would make them the main focus and give you them in all their rawest and most shocking detail, I think McVeigh gives you something far more clever and intricate… no word is wasted, no sentence unplanned… ”
You can read he whole interview by clipping the link at the top. You can also listen to my interview with Simon in his podcast ‘You Wrote The Book‘.
Canadian author Lauren B Davis choses ‘The Good Son’ as one of her 10 Best of 2015.
Canadian author Lauren B Davis choses ‘The Good Son’ as one of her 10 Best of 2015. I’m in very good company too- EL Doctorow, John Williams, Anthony Doerr… ! Thanks Lauren. Here’s a snippet.
“This book is astonishing. It’s hard to believe this is a first novel, it’s so good. A masterful combination of tragedy and humor, stirred into a batter of scathing social commentary. Paul McVeigh is a writer we’ll be hearing a great deal from in years to come.”
You can read the rest here.
Susie Wild Reviews The Good Son in Bare Fiction
Another wonderful review of The Good Son, this time from Susie Wild in Bare Fiction Magazine. Read the whole thing by clicking the link.
‘A vivid, playful, fence-hurdling, page-turning act of cocky bravado and endearing imagination. Mickey is a shining star of a protagonist; charming, erudite, and warmly, infectiously funny.
…a startling debut, McVeigh proves he more than warrants the literary company he keeps. The writing is sharp and the voice, a difficult one to sustain over a novel’s length, rarely falters. With pages so full of heart and helter-skelter movement, it is no surprise to learn that he also has a background in theatre. The pages of his first novel are alive with sparky dialogue and this visual language, the brash and the subtle, the compelling, the compassionate.
An engaging storyteller, I hope to see more from Paul McVeigh…’
You can hear me read from The Good Son Thursday Dec 3 at Waterstones Piccadilly at 6.30. For tickets to the Word Factory salon at the Waterstones Xmas evening email piccadilly@waterstones.com .
The Good Son 