The Boy from the Sea

by Garrett Carr

• Hardback
• 336 pages
  
• Signed by the author

THE IRISH TIMES NO. 4 BESTSELLER

A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025

An Observer Best Debut of 2025

An ordinary town. An extraordinary boy.

The life-affirming story of a baby found on a beach and the fisherman who adopts him.

'Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses

'A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny' The Sunday Times

'I didn't want it to ever end' Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach.

Named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who adopts him, the boy will become a source of fascination and hope for a town caught in the storm of a rapidly changing world. Ambrose, a man more comfortable at sea than on land, brings Brendan into his home out of love. But it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man – more comfortable at sea than on land – to try to understand himself and those he cares for.

Set over twenty years, Garrett Carr’s The Boy From the Sea is a novel about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world. It is an exploration of the ties that make us and bind us, as a family and community move irresistibly into the future.