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The Fields
On sale
28th February 2013
Price: £12.99
Authors' Club Best First Novel, 2014
‘A joy to read: fresh, funny, moving and always surprising’ Kate Atkinson
‘Fresh, beguiling and laugh-out-loud funny on every page, this must be the most enjoyable Irish novel since Skippy Dies‘ Guardian</font>
They’d sit around in a steamy kitchen circle like four mad witches, and dip ginger-snaps into Maxwell House until they went wobbly-warm, and take turns at saying, Jahear about so-and-so, Lord rest his soul, only thirty years old, poor creature?! They were brilliant at it. Scaring the shite out of each other, grinning inside.
Jim Finnegan is thirteen years old and life in his world consists of dealing with the helter-skelter intensity of his rumbustious family, taking breakneck bike rides with his best friend, and coveting the local girls from afar – until one day when everything changes.
The Fields is an unforgettable story of an extraordinary character: Jim’s voice leaps off the page and straight into the reader’s heart as he grapples with his unfairly interrupted adolescence.
Praise for The Fields:
‘Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measures’ Stylist
Funny and heart-warming’ Daily Mail
‘The Fields is crazy mad, lyrical and unforgettable’ Red
‘Exquisite moments of comedy that anyone with a whiff of Irish heritage will immediately recognise’ Sunday Express
‘Fresh, beguiling and laugh-out-loud funny on every page, this must be the most enjoyable Irish novel since Skippy Dies‘ Guardian</font>
They’d sit around in a steamy kitchen circle like four mad witches, and dip ginger-snaps into Maxwell House until they went wobbly-warm, and take turns at saying, Jahear about so-and-so, Lord rest his soul, only thirty years old, poor creature?! They were brilliant at it. Scaring the shite out of each other, grinning inside.
Jim Finnegan is thirteen years old and life in his world consists of dealing with the helter-skelter intensity of his rumbustious family, taking breakneck bike rides with his best friend, and coveting the local girls from afar – until one day when everything changes.
The Fields is an unforgettable story of an extraordinary character: Jim’s voice leaps off the page and straight into the reader’s heart as he grapples with his unfairly interrupted adolescence.
Praise for The Fields:
‘Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measures’ Stylist
Funny and heart-warming’ Daily Mail
‘The Fields is crazy mad, lyrical and unforgettable’ Red
‘Exquisite moments of comedy that anyone with a whiff of Irish heritage will immediately recognise’ Sunday Express
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Reviews
Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure...the relationship with the most profound effect on him - with his father - is the least dramatic but it's so quietly devastating it had me in tears...I couldn't put it down
The Fields is crazy mad, lyrical and unforgettable...a funny, moving, compelling and hugely original coming of age story
Utterly captivating. If you're a fan of Chris O'Dowd's Moone Boy then this is definitely for you
Funny and heart-warming. Maher is an engaging writer and this is a hugely enjoyable debut
Black comedy and infinite narrative energy...Maher's writing is immediate, highly descriptive and unflinching
A joy to read, fresh, funny, moving and always unexpected.
Magic and weirdly moving
A fabulous first novel . . . beautifully observed . . . very funny indeed
Were Roddy Doyle to co-author a novel with Edward St. Aubyn, the results might look a lot like Kevin Maher's gloriously ribald debut, The Fields...Maher's fearless and heartwarming prose is simply too lovely to resist