Poet and novelist James McManus has a new book of linked stories out, Education of A Poker Player. We follow Vince Killeen through adolescence as he grows away from his childhood desire to be a priest and thereby save his beloved grandmother from Purgatory. Nothing against his grandmother—girls and cards are just more fun. Set in Lisle in the late 1950s and early '60s, this novel with a candid tone gives a fantastic feel for the sights, sounds, attitudes and experiences of that period.
Awarded a Booker prize, Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke, Ha-ha-ha also deals in a candid fashion with boyhood. While younger and living in late-1960s Ireland, Paddy Clarke is another compelling character and very authentic. Over the course of a year, he learns many things, including to treat his younger brother more decently and that his da may not be the world's best person, let alone husband. Again, one gets a real feel for the language and situations of the time and place.
Another highly praised novel of growing up male is Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table. Eleven-year-old Michael is sailing from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to England with his older female cousin in the early 1950s. Falling in with two other boys about the same age, he has many adventures on board, and is strongly influenced throughout his life by his experiences with his friends and with his dinner companions at the least socially desirable table. Told from the perspective of the man he becomes, Michael uncovers the secrets of childhood in this lyrical, stylistically complex tale.
Although it takes place in 1982, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green has much in common with these books. Living in "muddiest Worcestershire," Jason Taylor, 13, struggles to navigate his stammer, school social hierarchies and his parents' disintegrating marriage. Another novel with a compelling narrative voice, the atmosphere of Thatcher's England is brilliantly evoked.
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