Books › At swim, two boys
At swim, two boys
656 pages
A sweeping, sea-swept tragedy of first love colliding with the brutal tide of history.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like standing on a cold, rocky beach watching a magnificent storm roll in. The prose is dense, musical, and unapologetically Joycean, demanding that you slow down and let its rich Irish rhythms wash over you. At its center is a profound, aching tenderness, a beautifully rendered queer awakening that feels both fragile and monumental. Yet, this intimate warmth is constantly shadowed by the looming, inevitable violence of historical rebellion. The atmosphere is steeped in yearning and a melancholic nostalgia for lost innocence. It is a deeply immersive, emotionally devastating experience that will thoroughly wreck and delight readers who crave lyrical, challenging historical fiction and do not mind having their hearts broken by the final page.
- Mood
- sea-swept
- melancholic
- yearning
- doomed
- Tone
- lyrical
- tender
- tragic
- reverent
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- first love and sexual awakening · the weight of history · loss of innocence · national identity · class divides
- The writing
- Dense, musical, and heavily Joycean, demanding a slow read to savor its rich Irish vernacular and poetic rhythms.
- The arc
- Moves from the hesitant, tender warmth of youthful awakening into the crushing, inevitable heartbreak of historical tragedy.
- Who it's for
- Lovers of challenging, deeply atmospheric literary fiction who want to be devastated by a beautifully written queer historical romance.
Content notes
- homophobia
- war violence
- death of a loved one
- period-typical bigotry
About the book
Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill.
Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.
Description from Open Library.
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