Beyond the Pale
2025, November Editions
A dead author, a sprawling, unpaginated manuscript in longhand, and a mysterious editor struggling to unravel the narrative it contains …
Thus emerges the resonant tale of Bo, a precocious, quick-witted child growing up in a foster family in postwar Ireland. Set predominantly in the countryside, the manuscript traces the boy’s memories and dreams of one day escaping the Pale – the former historical base of English rule – in a series of cyclical and increasingly polyphonic episodes.
With two names, two languages, and a makeshift household of stand-in relatives, Bo’s youth unfolds in a disorienting flux, which he navigates with humour and a zest for language, delighting in magical wordplay. As he lets the voices around him mingle and blend with the sounds of nature, fragments from the radio, whispered prayers and half-remembered songs, an inner idiom takes root from which he will form a mind of his own.
Radically inventive, rich in Irish vernacular and steeped in the oral tradition, Beyond the Pale is a densely textured celebration of place, memory, and the creative power of language to shape our sense of self and world.