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.
The Good Son
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
The Good Son makes Polari Prize Shortlist
The Good Son Makes The Polari Prize Shortlist
The Good Son has made The Polari Prize shortlist. Exciting!
You can read all about it here.
The Chair of the judges, Paul Burston, wrote a wonderful article in The Irish Times about Mickey Donnelly that I found very moving.
“There aren’t a great many sexually ambiguous, sassy, 10-year-old Irish narrators in literature. So thank heavens for Mickey Donnelly. From the moment we first meet him, we know that Mickey is a mammy’s boy. But there’s more to it than that. To his older brother Paddy, he’s a “wee gay boy” and “a fucking weirdo”. To the kids who play on the mean streets where he lives, he’s a “fruity boy” who acts “like a girl”. The boys bully him. The girls tease him. Even Mickey’s Aunt Kathleen worries about the way he behaves. “Do you think he’s…” she asks, before Mickey’s mother cuts her off. Not even a doting mammy wants to consider the possibility of her wee boy turning out like that.”
“What emerges from this novel isn’t just a portrait of the outsider as a young Irishman. It’s also a testament to the strength of character required by gay children simply to survive. Mickey may be effeminate but he’s certainly not weak. He’s kind, loving and sometimes an eejit. He’s also cunning and far more courageous than any 10-year-old boy should need to be. He might not have his “man’s voice” yet, but he’s the only one man enough to take care of his mother.”
Read it all here. It’s really special.
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
The Talented Mickey Donnelly
Mickey Donnelly as Tom Ripley – the wonderful Sarah Hilary, winner of the Theakson’s Crime Novel of the Year, compares ‘The Good Son’ with crime novels and ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’.
“In Mickey Donnelly, readers have an amateur detective who is also an innocent bystander. It’s a clever conceit, and a neat departure (intentional or otherwise) from the current fashion for unreliable narrators. Mickey witnesses events which readers understand to be depraved and brutal, but which Mickey relates with an innocent impartiality. This impartiality, were he not 10 years old, would hint at a lack of empathy, perhaps even sociopathic leanings. But Mickey is 10 and brutalised by his surroundings, growing up in a place so scarred and dangerous it rivals any improvised prison dreamt up by the worst of crime fiction’s serial killers. The pit in Buffalo Bill’s house has nothing on the Bray or the Bone hills. Hard to imagine a more degrading fate than that suffered by the young woman found tarred and feathered for sleeping with the wrong man, an image made all the more powerful because we know it happened often and to many.”
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.”
Danielle McLaughlin explores The Good Son
Danielle McLaughlin explores The Good Son and the story that inspired it.
One of Ireland’s finest short story writers examines how I developed my short story, What I Did On My Summer Holidays, into ‘a captivating and poignant book’.
Click to read.
Currently longlisted 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
The Irish Independent Top Reads of 2015
The Reading Agency Staff Picks Best of 2015
Wales Arts Review – Fiction of the Year
Number 1 Beach Read The Pool
A Gransnet Best Christmas Read for 2015
Savidge Reads and Pam Reader Blogs Books of the Year
Lisa McInerney, winner of The Bailey’s Prize raves about The Good Son
The hottest writer in the UK/Ireland right now, Lisa McInerney, winner of The Bailey’s Prize and the Desmond Elliot Prize, raves about The Good Son in The Irish Times. “How dark humour makes a fun and disquieting read” click to read the full article.
On dark humour – “In especially skilful hands it can be a radical act, sharpening transgressive fiction or teasing out a reader’s complicity in monstrous acts. For McVeigh, such humour is both his characters’ psychological safeguard and a devastating literary technique, for it serves first as a delightful key to Mickey’s world, and then, once we are comfortable, as a horrifying contrast.”
Currently longlisted 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
The Irish Independent Top Reads of 2015
One of The Reading Agency Staff Picks Best of 2015
Wales Arts Review – Fiction of the Year
Number 1 Beach Read The Pool
A Gransnet Best Christmas Read for 2015
Savidge Reads and Pam Reader Blogs Books of the Year
Irish Writers Centre July 19
Hope to see some of you tomorrow at 7.30pm.
Tickets via Eventbrite: €5 / €3 | Tickets on the door: €7
(glass of wine included)
The Irish Times Book Club in association with the Irish Writers Centre present:
The Good Son – Paul McVeigh in conversation with Martin Doyle and the Irish Times Book Club
A writer to be championed… utterly engaging… vivid, fresh and brought fully to life… written with a sharp eye and a big heart, The Good Son will establish Paul McVeigh as an important new Irish voice — Lucy Caldwell
About the book
Mickey Donnelly is smart, which isn’t a good thing in his part of town. Despite having a dog called Killer and being in love with the girl next door, everyone calls him ‘gay’. It doesn’t help that his best friend is his little sister, Wee Maggie, and that everyone knows he loves his Ma more than anything in the world. He doesn’t think much of his older brother Paddy and really doesn’t like his Da. He dreams of going to America, taking Wee Maggie and Ma with him, to get them away from Belfast and Da. Mickey realises it’s all down to him. He has to protect Ma from herself. And sometimes, you have to be a bad boy to be a good son.
About the author
Paul McVeigh’s work has been performed on stage and radio, published in print and been translated into 7 languages. He began his career as a playwright in his home town, Belfast, before moving to London where he wrote comedy shows, which were performed at the Edinburgh Festival and in London’s West End. The Good Son (Salt), his first novel, was Brighton’s City Reads for 2016, shortlisted for The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and is currently a finalist for The People’s Book Prize and longlisted for The Polari Prize. It was shortlisted for The Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker’ Prize in 2015 and chosen by The Literary Platform to be part of The UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature. He won The McCrea Literary Award in 2015.
– This event will be recorded in front of a live audience for the Irish Times Book Club podcast so please arrive promptly.
– Whether you’ve read the book or not, come along on the 19th and join in the conversation. The book will also be available for purchase at the event.
Book your ticket for Irish Times Book Club now >>>
Read My First Short Story
Go easy on me – this was my first attempt at prose…
Today The Irish Times published two pieces to start their Book Club month celebrating The Good Son.
You can read the original 17 (not 15) year old story short story ‘What I Did On My Summer Holidays‘ which was the inspiration for the novel.
The second piece, Go Easy On Me, is a companion to the story, explaining the move from plays to prose and the evolution of the story into a novel. It also talks about using humour in dark situations and everyday swearing!
I hope you like them.
Vote The Good Son for The People’s Book Prize
Hi there,
It’s one week to go before The People’s Book Prize closes on July 10. Perhaps if you haven’t already and had a moment to spare you might vote for The Good Son?
I’d be very grateful.
Paul McVeigh 