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The Brothers' Lot
"Holohan's ability to write the kind of free-flowing naturalistic dialogue that so potently conveys the anarchic spirit of schoolboy warfare . . . is grounded by a shadow play of macabre references to horrors that ghost around the edges of the narrative, many eerily similar to some of the more infamous real life reports that have emerged in recent years."
-- The Irish Times
Combining the spirit of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim with a bawdy evisceration of hypocrisy in old-school Catholic education, The Brothers' Lot is a comic satire that tells the story of the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means, a dilapidated Dickensian institution run by an assemblage of eccentric, insane, and often nasty celibate Brothers. The school is in decline and the Brothers hunger for a miracle to move their founder, the Venerable Saorseach O'Rahilly, along the path to Sainthood.
When a possible miracle presents itself, the Brothers fervently seize on it with the help of the ethically pliant Diocesan Investigator, himself hungry for a miracle to boost his career. The school simultaneously comes under threat from strange outside forces. The harder the Brothers try to defend the school, the worse things seem to get. It takes an outsider, Finbar Sullivan, a young student newly arrived at the school, to see that the source of the threat may in fact lie inside the school itself. As the miracle unravels, the Brothers' efforts to preserve it unleash a disastrous chain of events.
Tackling a serious subject from the oblique viewpoint of satire, The Brothers' Lot explores the culture that allowed abuses within church-run institutions in Ireland to go unchecked for decades.
-- The Irish Times
Combining the spirit of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim with a bawdy evisceration of hypocrisy in old-school Catholic education, The Brothers' Lot is a comic satire that tells the story of the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means, a dilapidated Dickensian institution run by an assemblage of eccentric, insane, and often nasty celibate Brothers. The school is in decline and the Brothers hunger for a miracle to move their founder, the Venerable Saorseach O'Rahilly, along the path to Sainthood.
When a possible miracle presents itself, the Brothers fervently seize on it with the help of the ethically pliant Diocesan Investigator, himself hungry for a miracle to boost his career. The school simultaneously comes under threat from strange outside forces. The harder the Brothers try to defend the school, the worse things seem to get. It takes an outsider, Finbar Sullivan, a young student newly arrived at the school, to see that the source of the threat may in fact lie inside the school itself. As the miracle unravels, the Brothers' efforts to preserve it unleash a disastrous chain of events.
Tackling a serious subject from the oblique viewpoint of satire, The Brothers' Lot explores the culture that allowed abuses within church-run institutions in Ireland to go unchecked for decades.
317 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2011
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About the author
Kevin Holohan
3 books12 followersKevin Holohan was born in Dublin. He is a graduate of University College Dublin and a veteran of a high school education at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers. His short stories have been published in Cyphers, The Sunday Tribune (Dublin), and Whispers and Shouts. His poetry has been published in Studies, Casablanca, Envoi, and Poetry Ireland. His first novel, The Brothers' Lot, was published to critical acclaim by Akashic Books in 2011. His most recent novel, So You Wanna Run a Country? was called “a raucous, engrossing, unsettling whirlwind of a story that is as disarmingly novel as it is disturbingly familiar” by Kirkus Reviews. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 15, 2011
Despite being enjoyable, upsetting, disturbing and laugh-out-loud funny, the overwhelming emotion I’m left with after reading The Brother’s Lot is disbelief that such things could happen in a developed country in our times; that they did happen is now beyond doubt, a matter of documented history, the truly incredible part is that so many colluded with the perpetrators and enabled such cruelties to go on for so very long.
I loved the names, Our Lady of Indefinite Duration, the School for Young Boys of Meagre Means, the Brothers of Godly Coercion and the many strange rituals they use to turn their minds from sin - and there are many sins; proscribed, depraved activities with which ‘da Brudders’ have to abstain from each day, like the wearing of soft hats, the public fondling of young boys, the peering into public conveyances with lustful intent and the foreign evil of soccer.
The Brothers are a wonderfully drawn clutch of grotesques, ranging from the psychotically violent Brother Moody, the pragmatically vicious, ambitious Brother Loughlin, to gentler souls, driven insane by the strangeness of their lives like poor Brother Boland, who hears the crumbling walls speak to him, and Brother Tobin, who exorcises sin by carefully razoring out and eating the words of the softly pornographic novels he bribes boys to bring him from England, now that he’s been banned from the public library and his library card revoked.
The miracle alluded to on the cover-blurb plays only a small role in the actual plot which mainly concerns itself with the many mundane horrors the boys endure over the course of a school year – Not only boys, we get glimpses, too, into the harsh conditions endured by convent girls and those unfortunate enough to be sent to the ‘Jezebel Laundries’. It’s remarkable how much comedy Kevin Holohan manages to squeeze out of a situation that was about as far from funny as it’s possible to get. The comedy is the main reason to read this book, rather than any of the (many) misery memoirs that treat the same subject with the gravity it clearly deserves; no one watches Father Ted to learn about the Catholic clergy in Ireland – or maybe they do, and maybe they should? A lighter treatment and a fictional approach often says far more about reality than any number of darkly-lit and mournfully scored films and documentaries.
The plot of The Brothers' Lot, such as it is, is surely not meant to be taken literally. Far fetched and comically exaggerated, it gets more than a little beyond belief at times. The ending, especially, in which everyone gets their just desserts, is a little pat, but it’s a small quibble and had little impact on my enjoyment of the book as a whole (which was mighty).
I loved the names, Our Lady of Indefinite Duration, the School for Young Boys of Meagre Means, the Brothers of Godly Coercion and the many strange rituals they use to turn their minds from sin - and there are many sins; proscribed, depraved activities with which ‘da Brudders’ have to abstain from each day, like the wearing of soft hats, the public fondling of young boys, the peering into public conveyances with lustful intent and the foreign evil of soccer.
The Brothers are a wonderfully drawn clutch of grotesques, ranging from the psychotically violent Brother Moody, the pragmatically vicious, ambitious Brother Loughlin, to gentler souls, driven insane by the strangeness of their lives like poor Brother Boland, who hears the crumbling walls speak to him, and Brother Tobin, who exorcises sin by carefully razoring out and eating the words of the softly pornographic novels he bribes boys to bring him from England, now that he’s been banned from the public library and his library card revoked.
The miracle alluded to on the cover-blurb plays only a small role in the actual plot which mainly concerns itself with the many mundane horrors the boys endure over the course of a school year – Not only boys, we get glimpses, too, into the harsh conditions endured by convent girls and those unfortunate enough to be sent to the ‘Jezebel Laundries’. It’s remarkable how much comedy Kevin Holohan manages to squeeze out of a situation that was about as far from funny as it’s possible to get. The comedy is the main reason to read this book, rather than any of the (many) misery memoirs that treat the same subject with the gravity it clearly deserves; no one watches Father Ted to learn about the Catholic clergy in Ireland – or maybe they do, and maybe they should? A lighter treatment and a fictional approach often says far more about reality than any number of darkly-lit and mournfully scored films and documentaries.
The plot of The Brothers' Lot, such as it is, is surely not meant to be taken literally. Far fetched and comically exaggerated, it gets more than a little beyond belief at times. The ending, especially, in which everyone gets their just desserts, is a little pat, but it’s a small quibble and had little impact on my enjoyment of the book as a whole (which was mighty).
January 31, 2026
"With a lurch of tired despair the school settled heavily on its foundations...The institution had given up its central governing spirit. The will to endure had left it. It stood like a house of cards, held up only by bad workmanship, the haphazard arrangement of substandard building materials, and a kind of rigor mortis. Every weakness, every crack and fissure, every stress point and loose shingle had only to will itself and could put an end to its sorry lot of bearing witness to the daily enactment of a vision twisted and thwarted that now blighted everyone and everything in its ambit..." Pages 291/2 from my paperback edition from Akashic Books in 2011.
Substitute Catholic Church for 'school' in the above quotation and you have the essence of this marvellous, beautiful, funny and heart rending novel about a time and events so foul that in the long ugly history it deserves a place, maybe on the lower levels, on the long list of 'sins calling to heaven for vengeance'. This novel is also a rewrite of history as a tale of revenge against evil and oppressors with justice and freedom delivered to the oppressed. It is a 'fairy tale' in the tradition of Grimm and Perrault but definitely not Disney, and has a denouement as perfect as the conclusion of the Odyssey or any other legend because it promises that truth will out and justice will be done. And in this novel all this happens for the boys of The Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meagre Means but we all know that this is but the wish fulfilment of a metaphorical tale. In reality the wicked who get their comeuppance are so few compared to the numbers of their victims as to be an obscenity.
I can't insist enough that this is a marvellous, funny and brilliantly novel. Calling it fantasy or wish fulfilment is not to deny any of the truth or power of its prose nor Mr. Holohan's wonderful evocation of the boys, and many of their oppressors. There is history which needs to be recorded honestly and correctly and then there is literary truth which makes out of the facts a greater more resonant truth. The world Mr. Holihan creates in 'The Brother's Lot' is timeless, like the worlds of Roald Dahl. The Dickensian circumstances of characters like Charlie Bucket were already lost to history when Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was published never mind in the 21st century. The world of Finbar Sullivan and his schoolmates at the Godly Coercion School were over by the time I was at secondary school in Ireland in the 1970's though of course not entirely expunged (please see footnote 1* below). In that sense the novel takes place in never-never land, outside of a specific date, which allows it to be universal, because it tells a story of great truth. This is not a YA (please see footnote *2 below) novel but it is a novel that any 13 year old could and maybe should read.
I realise that most of my review is about the real story behind the novel, the huge clerical abuse scandal in Ireland (but then clerical abuse was not unique to Ireland), rather than the novel itself but that cannot be avoided because if you remove the reality then 'The Brother's Lot' becomes a tale divorced from truth and meaning. History is already being rewritten by the revisionists/deniers:
"Imagine...that there is a force of intelligent evil and it plans to corrupt at the level of all that is most sacred. What would its strategy be? It might turn to corrupt innocence, in which case it would go after children. It would use a potent and highly damaging form of corruption and so chose perhaps sex. It would seek to pervert the most trusted of occupations, let’s say that of a priest, and do it within the most important spiritual and ethical organisation in world history: the Catholic Church.
"If this strategy succeeded it would have the effect of soiling the reputation and value of the Catholic Church across generations to come. But who or what is to blame here? There is nothing intrinsically evil in either the priesthood or the Catholic Church – in fact the opposite is true: they are intrinsically sacred. What is to blame is evil – and in particular evil spirits that gain access for this strategy of despoliation." (please footnote *3 below).
But what Mr. Holohan does is to remind us that it wasn't a few bad apples but a corrupt, rotten and evil institution. Although the members of the Religious organisation he portrays, the Brothers of Godly Coercion founded by the Venerable Saorsech O'Rahilly' (that the Brothers of Godly Correction are based on the Christian Brothers may only be apparent to an Irish person of my generation - but they are) are moral blanks but he recognises that they are also victims; men who were dispatched into a religious vocation and life celibacy at the age of 13/14 and were formed and corrupted into the monsters we meet in the novel by the same institutions that they are now presiding over.
Although everyone in Ireland now blames 'The Catholic Church' for what happened that is to ignore the reality. The Catholic Church in Ireland was staffed by the brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins of ordinary Irish men women. The power of the Irish Church and Religious organisations was not usurped it was given over to them willingly by the Irish people. They were as complicit as ordinary Germans in WWII with the horrors perpetrated in their names. In many ways the Irish Church and Irish people are even more guilty because they exported their monsters, the ones whose acts could no longer be tolerated, excused or covered up, to the missions in places like Canada, Australia and elsewhere were they continued their abusive behavior.
Mr. Holohan creates a marvellous portrait of a time so ugly as to be unbelievable to so many only 15 years after an official investigation established its truth. It is a brilliantly fine novel which is all the better for not being in any way propagandistic. That you are on the side of the oppressed goes without saying but that you also understand that it is an evil that has permeated and corrupted everyone, particularly those who were not priests or brothers but laymen and women whose cooperation enabled others. Towards the end of the novel there is a wonderful cri de coeur against the layman who was deputy head of the school:
"...you vicious little fucker...you should have known better! These fucked-up brothers maybe have some excuse cos half of them were fucked up themselves...but you should know better! You live in the real world...May the rest of your life be a barren painful waste. May you die roaring, alone and far from the sight of your God and your fellow man, and your name be forgotten as soon as you are cold in your box."
If only we all could remember to live lives that would avoid such curse. But we won't and the horrors go on.
*1 I must admit that whatever grotesqueness I, and my classmates experienced at our boarding school, we were separated from the experiences of the boys in this novel by an almost unbelievably vast chasm of class and money. We were the tiny minority, the spoilt sons of Ireland's ruling class; yet that was only a thin protection. The reality was substantially less horrible but horrible nonetheless.
*2 I have grave reservations about YA novels because way too many are written for those who buy books for YA not for YA themselves. If Romeo and Juliet with its teenage sex, suicide, murder, etc. is suitable for a school's curriculum I see no reason for the same material written in plain prose rather than unrhymed iambic pentameters to be withheld.
*3 This a quote from Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator in an article Catholic Herald of April 23, 2014; https://catholicherald.co.uk/reflecti.... But is a good example of the way the clerical abuse scandal is being tidied away and minimised by the Catholic Church's apologists.
Substitute Catholic Church for 'school' in the above quotation and you have the essence of this marvellous, beautiful, funny and heart rending novel about a time and events so foul that in the long ugly history it deserves a place, maybe on the lower levels, on the long list of 'sins calling to heaven for vengeance'. This novel is also a rewrite of history as a tale of revenge against evil and oppressors with justice and freedom delivered to the oppressed. It is a 'fairy tale' in the tradition of Grimm and Perrault but definitely not Disney, and has a denouement as perfect as the conclusion of the Odyssey or any other legend because it promises that truth will out and justice will be done. And in this novel all this happens for the boys of The Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meagre Means but we all know that this is but the wish fulfilment of a metaphorical tale. In reality the wicked who get their comeuppance are so few compared to the numbers of their victims as to be an obscenity.
I can't insist enough that this is a marvellous, funny and brilliantly novel. Calling it fantasy or wish fulfilment is not to deny any of the truth or power of its prose nor Mr. Holohan's wonderful evocation of the boys, and many of their oppressors. There is history which needs to be recorded honestly and correctly and then there is literary truth which makes out of the facts a greater more resonant truth. The world Mr. Holihan creates in 'The Brother's Lot' is timeless, like the worlds of Roald Dahl. The Dickensian circumstances of characters like Charlie Bucket were already lost to history when Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was published never mind in the 21st century. The world of Finbar Sullivan and his schoolmates at the Godly Coercion School were over by the time I was at secondary school in Ireland in the 1970's though of course not entirely expunged (please see footnote 1* below). In that sense the novel takes place in never-never land, outside of a specific date, which allows it to be universal, because it tells a story of great truth. This is not a YA (please see footnote *2 below) novel but it is a novel that any 13 year old could and maybe should read.
I realise that most of my review is about the real story behind the novel, the huge clerical abuse scandal in Ireland (but then clerical abuse was not unique to Ireland), rather than the novel itself but that cannot be avoided because if you remove the reality then 'The Brother's Lot' becomes a tale divorced from truth and meaning. History is already being rewritten by the revisionists/deniers:
"Imagine...that there is a force of intelligent evil and it plans to corrupt at the level of all that is most sacred. What would its strategy be? It might turn to corrupt innocence, in which case it would go after children. It would use a potent and highly damaging form of corruption and so chose perhaps sex. It would seek to pervert the most trusted of occupations, let’s say that of a priest, and do it within the most important spiritual and ethical organisation in world history: the Catholic Church.
"If this strategy succeeded it would have the effect of soiling the reputation and value of the Catholic Church across generations to come. But who or what is to blame here? There is nothing intrinsically evil in either the priesthood or the Catholic Church – in fact the opposite is true: they are intrinsically sacred. What is to blame is evil – and in particular evil spirits that gain access for this strategy of despoliation." (please footnote *3 below).
But what Mr. Holohan does is to remind us that it wasn't a few bad apples but a corrupt, rotten and evil institution. Although the members of the Religious organisation he portrays, the Brothers of Godly Coercion founded by the Venerable Saorsech O'Rahilly' (that the Brothers of Godly Correction are based on the Christian Brothers may only be apparent to an Irish person of my generation - but they are) are moral blanks but he recognises that they are also victims; men who were dispatched into a religious vocation and life celibacy at the age of 13/14 and were formed and corrupted into the monsters we meet in the novel by the same institutions that they are now presiding over.
Although everyone in Ireland now blames 'The Catholic Church' for what happened that is to ignore the reality. The Catholic Church in Ireland was staffed by the brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins of ordinary Irish men women. The power of the Irish Church and Religious organisations was not usurped it was given over to them willingly by the Irish people. They were as complicit as ordinary Germans in WWII with the horrors perpetrated in their names. In many ways the Irish Church and Irish people are even more guilty because they exported their monsters, the ones whose acts could no longer be tolerated, excused or covered up, to the missions in places like Canada, Australia and elsewhere were they continued their abusive behavior.
Mr. Holohan creates a marvellous portrait of a time so ugly as to be unbelievable to so many only 15 years after an official investigation established its truth. It is a brilliantly fine novel which is all the better for not being in any way propagandistic. That you are on the side of the oppressed goes without saying but that you also understand that it is an evil that has permeated and corrupted everyone, particularly those who were not priests or brothers but laymen and women whose cooperation enabled others. Towards the end of the novel there is a wonderful cri de coeur against the layman who was deputy head of the school:
"...you vicious little fucker...you should have known better! These fucked-up brothers maybe have some excuse cos half of them were fucked up themselves...but you should know better! You live in the real world...May the rest of your life be a barren painful waste. May you die roaring, alone and far from the sight of your God and your fellow man, and your name be forgotten as soon as you are cold in your box."
If only we all could remember to live lives that would avoid such curse. But we won't and the horrors go on.
*1 I must admit that whatever grotesqueness I, and my classmates experienced at our boarding school, we were separated from the experiences of the boys in this novel by an almost unbelievably vast chasm of class and money. We were the tiny minority, the spoilt sons of Ireland's ruling class; yet that was only a thin protection. The reality was substantially less horrible but horrible nonetheless.
*2 I have grave reservations about YA novels because way too many are written for those who buy books for YA not for YA themselves. If Romeo and Juliet with its teenage sex, suicide, murder, etc. is suitable for a school's curriculum I see no reason for the same material written in plain prose rather than unrhymed iambic pentameters to be withheld.
*3 This a quote from Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator in an article Catholic Herald of April 23, 2014; https://catholicherald.co.uk/reflecti.... But is a good example of the way the clerical abuse scandal is being tidied away and minimised by the Catholic Church's apologists.
March 31, 2011
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Although when they're really on their game, I find Akashic Books to be one of the greatest small presses in the entire United States, when they're not I find myself sort of shrugging a lot at their midlist titles, novels that aren't terrible but aren't exactly great either, and that seem to just quietly come and go without making much of a lasting impression on me. Take this story about Irish Catholic schools, for example, written by an actual Irishman (and now Brooklynite) with an obvious chip on his shoulder, featuring a plot that's fairly normal (rowdy boys suffer through a year of abuse and molestation, even as the school itself is threatened by a construction project that's slated to begin next-door), but with a tone that veers between McCourtesque humorous social realism and the exaggeration of a deliberate cartoon. And that's probably my biggest criticism of it, in fact, is that in his zeal to exorcise some of his demons, he's created a cast of adult characters who all tend to blend together into one big leather-strap-holding monster with a hard-to-pronounce name, a story too realistic to reach a Kathy-Acker level of symbolism yet too stylized to be treated as reality. And that's a bit of a shame, because Holohan is a good writer, and a unified feel to this manuscript would've helped to sell it more, and not make it feel so much like just another generic tale about Irish childhood abuse with touches of magic realism. It's worth checking out if you end up running across a copy, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to find it.
Out of 10: 7.9
Although when they're really on their game, I find Akashic Books to be one of the greatest small presses in the entire United States, when they're not I find myself sort of shrugging a lot at their midlist titles, novels that aren't terrible but aren't exactly great either, and that seem to just quietly come and go without making much of a lasting impression on me. Take this story about Irish Catholic schools, for example, written by an actual Irishman (and now Brooklynite) with an obvious chip on his shoulder, featuring a plot that's fairly normal (rowdy boys suffer through a year of abuse and molestation, even as the school itself is threatened by a construction project that's slated to begin next-door), but with a tone that veers between McCourtesque humorous social realism and the exaggeration of a deliberate cartoon. And that's probably my biggest criticism of it, in fact, is that in his zeal to exorcise some of his demons, he's created a cast of adult characters who all tend to blend together into one big leather-strap-holding monster with a hard-to-pronounce name, a story too realistic to reach a Kathy-Acker level of symbolism yet too stylized to be treated as reality. And that's a bit of a shame, because Holohan is a good writer, and a unified feel to this manuscript would've helped to sell it more, and not make it feel so much like just another generic tale about Irish childhood abuse with touches of magic realism. It's worth checking out if you end up running across a copy, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to find it.
Out of 10: 7.9
August 8, 2011
This is a wonderful book, such a good read that I couldn't put it down and read it in two days. The story is compelling: I had to find out how it ends. It shows a rebellion by schoolboys against the nastiness of their teachers, priests like the Christian Brothers (here the Brothers of Godly Coercion) and a few lay teachers. Each boy is characterized distinctly, as is each priest. The story makes you laugh and cry. It is a fable for contemporary Ireland but also for any country where authorities are cruel. Kevin Holohan is a great writer; it's hard to believe this is only his first novel. Highly recommended.
April 26, 2020
This novels tells the story of students and Brothers at Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meagre Means.
Most of the students live with a carefree attitude within the walls of the institution, always pulling off nasty pranks and mutter nasty insults towards one another and the Brothers. They have no bonding with the Brothers. The institution itself is in a state of decline, which has driven an already mad Brother to an even madder state.
One day, a miracle happened and the Brothers are eager to discover whether the miracle is a sign from the institution’s founder, the late Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly. Unexpectedly, this kicks off a chain of strange events and the true characters of the Brothers are slowly revealed.
In overall, it was a decent read! Had good few laughs out of it.
Most of the students live with a carefree attitude within the walls of the institution, always pulling off nasty pranks and mutter nasty insults towards one another and the Brothers. They have no bonding with the Brothers. The institution itself is in a state of decline, which has driven an already mad Brother to an even madder state.
One day, a miracle happened and the Brothers are eager to discover whether the miracle is a sign from the institution’s founder, the late Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly. Unexpectedly, this kicks off a chain of strange events and the true characters of the Brothers are slowly revealed.
In overall, it was a decent read! Had good few laughs out of it.
February 13, 2023
The humour and heart in this book is unparalleled. Kevin Holohan brings such humanity throughout.
A book with many broken people and yet hope breaking through full of laughter. You'll feel the kaleidoscope of emotions whilst reading this deadly book
A book with many broken people and yet hope breaking through full of laughter. You'll feel the kaleidoscope of emotions whilst reading this deadly book
February 21, 2011
Kevin Holohan's debut novel is an incredibly amusing satire that focuses on the ecclesiastical abuses found in religious schools in Ireland. The Brothers of Godly Coercion for Young Boys of Meager Means are the center piece of the story.
Young Finbar Sullivan and his family move to Dublin from the country town of Cork, where Finbar finds that he's not only alienated from all the comforts of his small town life, but he is now subjected to the cruelties of daily living amongst of myriad of new boys who peg him as a country bumpkin. Add to that the depravity of the Brothers and their need to leather these boys for any minor infraction, and we've got a recipe for theological contradiction and cruelty.
Holohan's strength is his use of satire without turning this narrative into a PBS miniseries. Maybe it's just me, but when I hear the word satire used, I tend to think of bad British TV mysteries and chaps on bikes, with Belle and Sebastian playing twee music in the background. Holohan's novel has none of that. Rather, he paints a picture of hard working Dubliners who struggle to get by and who treat family as the focal point of their lives. Meanwhile, everyone has their own struggles and Finbar finds his doled out to him by the bastards who run his school.
Once an alleged miracle takes place, an investigation begins by the Diocese and then everything at the school begins to unravel. The culmination of these events leads to many triumphant moments of hilarity and rebellion...all of which have the trappings of a really good film if the cast was chosen properly.
I applaud Kevin Holohan for a great first novel. If this is a sign of what's to come, I look forward to his next endeavor.
Young Finbar Sullivan and his family move to Dublin from the country town of Cork, where Finbar finds that he's not only alienated from all the comforts of his small town life, but he is now subjected to the cruelties of daily living amongst of myriad of new boys who peg him as a country bumpkin. Add to that the depravity of the Brothers and their need to leather these boys for any minor infraction, and we've got a recipe for theological contradiction and cruelty.
Holohan's strength is his use of satire without turning this narrative into a PBS miniseries. Maybe it's just me, but when I hear the word satire used, I tend to think of bad British TV mysteries and chaps on bikes, with Belle and Sebastian playing twee music in the background. Holohan's novel has none of that. Rather, he paints a picture of hard working Dubliners who struggle to get by and who treat family as the focal point of their lives. Meanwhile, everyone has their own struggles and Finbar finds his doled out to him by the bastards who run his school.
Once an alleged miracle takes place, an investigation begins by the Diocese and then everything at the school begins to unravel. The culmination of these events leads to many triumphant moments of hilarity and rebellion...all of which have the trappings of a really good film if the cast was chosen properly.
I applaud Kevin Holohan for a great first novel. If this is a sign of what's to come, I look forward to his next endeavor.
November 10, 2013
A really witty satire on the horrors of life when educated under the control of the "Christian Brother's" in Ireland. It was funny, sad, poignant and a patchwork of the true and the truly disturbing. Although the subject matter is confronting the book focuses on the relationships of the boys with each other and their escapades (mostly at the expense of the monks themselves) and so is actually a very easy and amusing read. You find yourself laughing when really you should be crying. Loved the style of the writing and would seek out more of the author's work.
March 14, 2012
Okay, perhaps an extra star because I actually met the author but I enjoyed this book about life in an Irish Catholic school for boys. Some might have trouble with the fact that it takes what seems to be a "lighthearted" look at what is clearly an abusive situation. But Holohan has that--forgive me--"Irish touch" one sees in the work of Frank McCourt and Marian Keyes that leaves you laughing at truly horrible situations.
October 23, 2011
ken by the moment. Parts were funny as they brought to mind the nasty spitefulness of 14 year olds who have it in for certain educators as I had experienced at that age. Having been taught by Christian Brothers, I never witnessed such behavior, altough I did hear of an incident where the teacher slammed a student intoa wall. Had our teachers treated us the way they did the students in the story I have no doubt we would have prevailed and they would have been ground into the ....
December 23, 2011
This was a weird book. I liked it, and was interested enough to keep reading. But the plot was slow to nonexistent. Even while reading, I wondered why new characters and everyday events kept occurring-- was anything actually going to happen, or were we just going to keep reading until the book ended? I'm not sure what it was that kept me reading, but I did. Worth it, but not something I'd spread the word about.
May 14, 2011
I spent too long reading this as I was on vacation and out of the house a lot. As it was, I managed to forget some of the characters' names, get mixed up with who was who, etc. But you know what? It didn't matter! Still a brilliant book, a satire of the Christian Brothers' reign of terror as the educators of Ireland's children. Wonderful, dark humor.
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December 1, 2011
Satire about Catholic boys school in Ireland--lots of abuse. The "humor" was a little too much--"the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means," etc.
I finished it though. It didn't seem as bad by the end of the book.
I finished it though. It didn't seem as bad by the end of the book.
December 19, 2014
It's really all about the building.
I don't know if this was on purpose but it was an amusing discovery. Several of the characters have repetitive names such as: Matt Matthews, Dermot McDermott, and Ray McRae.
I don't know if this was on purpose but it was an amusing discovery. Several of the characters have repetitive names such as: Matt Matthews, Dermot McDermott, and Ray McRae.
November 3, 2015
More like a 3.5. Had several laugh aloud moments, which is rare in books. Also made me pretty sad about what so many people actually had as a "normal" upbringing. Made me curious to learn more about some aspects of Ireland. Good read.
June 15, 2011
Very good. A bitter narrative of the life of Irish boys under the tutelage of priests in a parochial school.
August 20, 2011
See discussion.
October 31, 2011
Dark, funny, good twist ending. Probably cathartic for anyone who had been abused in a parochial school setting.
April 16, 2012
Loved this book!
August 23, 2012
Enjoyed it until the end
February 13, 2013
I have a signed copy of this book and highly suggest the read. The author is a great person as well!
January 10, 2014
A satirical book about boys at a Catholic school and the underlying current of inappropriate relationships with the students.
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