The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe 9.6 out of 10

 The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe

9.6 out of 10

There may be two ways you could look at this acclaimed, Booker Prize shortlisted novel, published in 1992, included on The Guardian’s 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction - in the Science fiction and Fantasy section.

One would be to enjoy the complexity of a book that might scare and horrify you to death, given that people die in it, killed with the gun that is used in dispatching the pigs – indeed, when the hero, or is it the antihero by that time(?), asks for a job with the infamous Leddy, of the ‘Shooting Piglets University’, in order to impress the would be boss, who is sure he cannot do it, Francie takes this gun and kills a piglet, astonishing the butcher and the readers at the same time – committing suicide or just passing away, as is the case of the parents of the main character, his mother killing herself and his father gradually suffering the ‘benefits’ of his almost continuous alcoholic intoxication.

At one point, Francis ‘Francie’ Brady looks at a list on which he has those close to him going off one by one – explaining in large part his unhappiness, in spite of the hilarious humor that keeps him afloat for some time, for positive psychology studies have looked at the happiest people and what they share is not immense wealth, but close bonds with family and friends – and on it we have Uncle Alo, who works in London and for a while benefits from a certain halo – he allegedly has ten people under his control – up to the moment when Benny Brady, his brother, confronts him with the truth that he had married a woman that is considerably older, ‘has hated him from the moment they married’ and this supposed macho man has been unable through the years to tell Mary – who has loved him all the time – anything about his feelings…

Alo is thus gone from the list and then the mother, who mentions the song with the one who hangs from the rope, would commit suicide and Francie would never get over this – first accusing the father who had had vicious quarrels with his spouse, whenever he was inebriated, which was for most of the time, then considering himself guilty and trying later to make some amends by trying to take care of his terminally ill father, getting a job in the most despicable place in the town, the slaughterhouse and providing food, drink and care to the man who had been such a promising musician as a young man, only to disappoint and fail as an eternal drunkard and a rather violent husband.

Joe is the best friend of The Butcher Boy, at least for the first part of the narrative and the affection that the hero aka antihero feels for him is so strong, desperate as to suggest, or make it possible that the undercurrent, the subconscious of the main character has some homoerotic inclination, though this is also presumably denied by what happens when the perverse father Sullivan enters the frame – however, homosexual or not, that clergy could have been so loathsome as to make the sexual orientation irrelevant, after all, we could be hetero and find some overwhelming woman too much to handle.

Most likely though would be the scenario in which The Butcher boy has nobody to be close to, for the parents are too much involved in their own self destructive interactions to take good care, perhaps any reasonable care of their son, notwithstanding the fact that the mother loves him intensely, but cannot cope with the multiple challenges of her life, the frailty of her mind, and therefore Joe Purcell is actually the only point of support, friendly figure, for as long as he is, before Mrs. Nugent takes him away, as Francie sees it, with his increasingly disturbed mind, inclined as he appears to be towards a paranoia that is quite understandable – everything around him crumbles, the pathetic father drinks himself to oblivion, destroying the mother in the process and furthermore, others, instead of lending some support, they treat the family with viciousness…

Mrs. Nugent comes to the Brady house, while Annie Brady, the mother, is still alive and she insults them abhorrently, calling them pigs, after Francie – never an angel, that is for sure – had taken some comics from Patrick Nugent, the son who would become the best friend of Joe, replacing hence the heartbroken Butcher Boy, who would moan over the gold fish given to his former cowboy buddy, by the son of the mortal enemy, The Nugent Woman, who would eventually pay dearly for her mistakes – alas, the spouse of the undersigned, making a mockery of his always stern, firmly expressed desire to remain in the dark as to the ending of a film or especially a book, told him much of what happens, from the big screen adaptation she had seen…

‘a flea talks to another and says…should we walk or take a dog…’ this is one of the jokes that Francis Brady exchanges with Joe, as they are still friends, but the latter would warn his friend not to do crazy things and when this is not taken into account, their relationship takes a different course, understandably, for at one point, angry as he reasonably is with the insults and arrogance, despise and venom he sees from the Nugent woman, Francie exaggerates nonetheless when he decides to take a dump in the house of the woman who calls Sargent ‘Sausage’ – throughout, the hilarious mirth is combined with the often outlandish gestures and ultimately the most horrible acts.

The hero aka antihero is taken to an institution managed by the one that Francie calls Bubble and this is where he is exposed to yet another abuse – in a way, we could stop here and state that ok, this Boy has suffered so much that it is only natural for him and indeed anyone to resort to what he did, making the one that he thinks is responsible for this ordeal pay the ultimate price – from Father Sullivan, the perverse idiot who starts pressing the boy, masturbating with him on his knees or in the room, shouting out insistently that he loves him, making the victim resort to violence in a last effort to stop him…

This reader was tempted to write that it is all downhill from here, but then stopped and realized that on so many levels, it is all a descent into Hades from the start, even if the pains, suffering are somewhat endurable and made more tolerable by the humor of the hero, it is still a most tormenting life, in a broken home, with a sick mother and father…