Patrick McCabe combines a poignant rite-of-passage tale with a vivid commentary on the human cost of the political turmoil of Ireland in the 1970s

The Butcher Boy
Written by Patrick McCabe
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1992
- Published by Picador
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Through his narrator’s stream of consciousness, Patrick McCabe portrays the descent into madness of a young killer in small-town Ireland in the 1960s
This is the story of Francis ‘Francie’ Brady, whose troubled home life leaves him violent and detached, yet somehow still childlike. Things begin to fall apart after his mother’s suicide - when he is consumed with fury and commits a terrible crime. Committed to an asylum, it is only here that he finally achieves peace.
Patrick McCabe
Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland. Two of his novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize
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