How to Build a Boat, by Elaine Feeney

This Booker-prize-longlisted Irish novel tells a small, poignant story of a neurodivergent 13-year-old boy and two teachers who make a difference in his life simply by accepting him as he is. Jamie is the main character and is an engaging first-person narrator for some sections of the book. I always wonder when a writer recreates the thoughts of an autistic young person (as in this book or in one like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) whether what they’re recreating would feel authentic to the experience of someone on the autism spectrum. That’s not a question I can answer, although I’m interested in what people on that spectrum would think of Jamie’s portrayal in this book. All I can say as a reader is that I believed in Jamie as a character; his actions make perfect sense in the context of how he thinks, even if they don’t always to people around him, and for me his attempts to carve out space in the difficult world of adolescence, and to process his grief over the mother he never knew, were the heart of the story.

I also liked the stories of the two teachers, Tess and Tadhg, people both stuck in their own lives and grieving their own losses, but able to reach out to a young person in need — as well as to each other. The project of building Jamie’s boat — begun in Tadhg’s woodworking classroom — turns into a little community that encompasses not just Tess, Tadhg, and Jamie, but a small group of other students, as well as Jamie’s loving but often overwhelmed father and grandmother. I found this a heartwarming-without-being-sentimental story that is ultimately about community and accepting other people for who they are.