McCoubrey by Mark B McCaffery (Greenisland Press)
SET in Portadown in 1971, McCoubrey is a fast-paced, witty debut novel by Mark B McCaffery, narrated by a 12-year-old boy growing up in a world where double standards and rules are suffocating him.
Barry-Joe McCoubrey shares a surname with Scene Around Six newsreader Larry McCoubrey, whose witty quips at the end of each nightly news bulletin make something of a minor celebratory of the young McCoubrey among his classmates as they congratulate him on his namesake's latest one-liner.
And as the newsreader brings the latest Troubles-related tragedy into Barry-Joe’s living room each night, the youngster tries to make sense of his lot – being a Catholic and living in one of the fiercest unionist towns in the North.
Barry-Joe's thoughts and inner conversations drive the book through each mundane day as he searches for his place in the world.
Observational, dry and funny, Barry-Joe navigates his way to and from school, challenges the norms and rules around him, while dealing with his own pre-teenage awkwardness, isolation and vulnerabilities. It irritates him that people in Portiedown are happy to mispronounce flure, dure and windies – including his own family.
The greyness and drabness of Portadown sits ill at ease with what is meant to be the start of summer. School is out but it still manages to feel like October. Park gates are closed and swings are tied up on a Sunday.
Throw in a raft of characters from friends, family and his nemesis at school, Mr O’Donnell, and the reader is brought back to their own schooldays where fear and fun where never far away and sometimes arrived in the same lesson.
"We knew this would happen but sometimes you hope for a miracle. Keep on hoping, boys, because Portadown is a miracle-free zone. Miracles might happen in Fatima or Loudres but not here."
But with community tensions and sectarianism heavy in the air even Barry-Joe’s sarcastic quips can’t keep the impending doom away; but he tries nonetheless.
"Some fella from Hartfield Square... I think it was one of them Mallons came knocking on all the Catholic doors to warn us. He accidentally knocked on Mrs Allen's house and she told him she was a Protestant and an Orange woman. He told her she needn't worry in that case but I've just noticed that she's gone and hung up her Union Jack for all the world to see."
Throw in a raft of characters from friends, family and his nemesis at school, Mr O’Donnell, and the reader is brought back to their own schooldays where fear and fun where never far away and sometimes arrived in the same lesson.
Mark B McCaffery was born in Portadown in 1958 and attended several local schools. McCoubrey is a coming-of-age novel inspired by his own childhood experience of growing up in the County Armagh town, which could transfer seamlessly from book to screen. Let's hope so, anyway.
McCoubrey is published b Greenisland Press and is priced £13/€15.
