How to Build a Boat

August 21, 2023
Irish novelist and poet Feeney (As You Were) delivers the touching story of a neurodivergent boy and the community that comes to his aid. In Galway, 13-year-old Jamie O’Neill dreams of building a perpetual motion machine that, in his mind, will connect him to his late mother, who died giving birth to him. Jamie knows the exact number of steps from home to his new school, where he faces bullies, beatings, and a school president, Father Faulks, who is hostile to students with special needs. Fortunately, he finds a sympathetic teacher in Tess Mahon, who is wilting under the strain of an unhappy marriage. Tess, in turn, introduces Jamie to the new woodwork teacher, Tadhg Foley, who suggests working with the boy to build a currach, a kind of boat. Pretty soon, other boys at the school join in the project, giving the usually isolated Jamie a much-needed sense of community. Only Father Faulks stands in the way of a smooth launch for the currach. The author has a beautiful, crystal-clear prose style that penetrates to the emotional core of her three main characters, whose hurts and desires are achingly rendered on the way to a quietly triumphant ending. Readers will not soon forget Jamie and his quest to make sense of a confusing world.