The Other Boy
On sale
15th February 2011
Price: £7.99
‘You know that moment between sleep and waking? I read somewhere that the first thing that comes into your head is what you desire or fear the most. I don’t know if that’s fully right though because for years when I opened my eyes I used to think of Mark.’
I’m JP Whelan and I said that my shrink. He’s always trying to get me to talk about what happened all those years ago, when we were just kids.
Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you about all that, about my life with Katie and Abbey in London or before then, back in Dublin, with Dad, listening to the Beatles and how those were the only times I really felt safe.
But then I’d have to tell you about Dessie and what happened with Mark.
But, it doesn’t all fit into some neat little box, my story. I wish it did. So if you really want to know the truth, you’re going to have to find out for yourself, because even now I’m not sure what the truth is.
I’m JP Whelan and I said that my shrink. He’s always trying to get me to talk about what happened all those years ago, when we were just kids.
Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you about all that, about my life with Katie and Abbey in London or before then, back in Dublin, with Dad, listening to the Beatles and how those were the only times I really felt safe.
But then I’d have to tell you about Dessie and what happened with Mark.
But, it doesn’t all fit into some neat little box, my story. I wish it did. So if you really want to know the truth, you’re going to have to find out for yourself, because even now I’m not sure what the truth is.
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Reviews
**** - 'a highly compelling tale ... a hugely gripping plot that takes us from 80s Ireland to contemporary London where the story ... reaches a shocking climax. A real page-turner.'
Intelligent and tautly written
'... as the tense drama between the brothers is played out, the lines between truth and lies, good and bad, light and dark become increasingly blurred, culminating in a violent and shocking act.
Cassidy does not provide the reader with any easy answers in this sinister story. The truth is to be found somewhere in the cracks and in-between spaces within each brother's narrative. It is ultimately left up to the reader to make sense of this on their own, to construct our own narrative to explain what has gone on.
A humdinger of a first novel . . . Cassidy is excellent at the build-up of tension, until the reader can hardly bare to turn the page for fear of what is to come. Rough, raw and telling it like it is . . .