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The fields

Kevin Maher

2013390 pagesabout 6–9 hours
2013
first published
  • 2013ENGISBN 9781444817003
  • 2013Little, Brown Book Group Limited · ENGISBN 9781408704165
  • 2013Little Brown & Company · ENGISBN 9780316223577
  • 2013Hachette Book Group · ENGISBN 9781306763127
  • 2013390 pages · ENGISBN 9780316223560
  • 2013Little, Brown · 393 pagesISBN 9781408704059
  • 2013Little, Brown Book Group Limited · 393 pages · ENGISBN 9781405515627
  • 2014Little, Brown Book Group Limited · 448 pages · ENGISBN 9780349138671

Set in 1980s Dublin and London, THE FIELDS tells the vividly evocative story of Jim Finnegan's unfairly interrupted adolescence. I slept right through to the next day. Missed the funeral and everything. Mam said it was just as well. Would've been too upsetting. I think of him now, though. Right at this moment. Here in this kitchen. And I wonder if it could've been different. Dublin, 1984: Ireland is a divided country, the Parish Priest remains a figure of immense authority and Jim Finnegan is thirteen years old, the youngest in a family of five sisters. Life in Jim's world consists of dealing with his rumbustious family, taking breakneck bike rides with his best friend, and quietly coveting the local girls from afar. But during the Donohues raucous annual party, Jim captures both the attention of the beautiful Saidhbh and the unwanted desires of the devious and dangerous Father Luke O'Culigeen. Bounced between his growing love for Saidhbh and his need to avoid the dreaded O'Culigeen, Jim's life starts to unravel. He and Saidhbh take a ferry for a clandestine trip to London that has dark and difficult repercussions, forcing Jim to look for the solutions to all his problems in some very unusual places.

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ThemesFamily
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