Jamie O'Neill – författare

~ The Irish contemporary classic in a beautiful new edition ~ 'Weren't you never out for an easy dip?' he asked . . . 'I don't mean the baths, I mean with a pal. For a lark like.'Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of Dublin rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact: that Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, they will swim the bay to the distant beacon of the Muglins rock, to raise the Green and claim it for themselves. As a turbulent year drives inexorably towards the Easter Rising of 1916 and Ireland sets forth on a path to uncertain glory, a tender, secret love story unfolds. Written with verve and mastery in a modern Irish tradition descended from James Joyce and Flann O'Brien, At Swim, Two Boys is a shimmering novel of unforgettable ambition, intensity and humanity. 'One of the greatest Irish novels ever written' David Marcus'The music of Jamie O'Neill's prose creates a new Irish symphony' Peter Ackroyd'Heartachingly beautiful' Independent on Sunday'A vivid picture of human freedom' Sunday Times

Nilus Moore, a young Irish boy, lives with his father in their decaying, shambolic house. Haunted by the death of his mother, he escapes the chaos outside in the refuge of his room where he plays obsessively with an enormous matt-black jigsaw, its orderly perfection an answer to his loss. His garlic-chewing father has taken to his bed with a bottle of brandy, oblivious of his own brother's plans to demolish his already crumbling house. As the rest of his world seems to tumble around him, Nilus has to struggle to keep his home - and his sanity - from falling apart.