The Butcher Boy

<p><b>With an introduction by Ross Raisin.</b><br><br><b>A modern classic of Irish fiction, shortlisted for the 1992 Booker prize.</b><br><br><i>When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent.</i><br><br>Francie Brady is a small-town rascal who spends his days turning a blind eye to the troubles at home and getting up to mischief with his best friend Joe – hiding in the chicken-house, shouting abuse at fish in the local stream. But after a disagreement with his neighbour Mrs Nugent over her son's missing comic books, Francie's reckless streak spirals out of control and gives rise to a monstrous obsession . . .<br><br>Fearless, shocking and blackly funny, Patrick McCabe's <i>The Butcher Boy </i>won the 1992 <i>Irish Times </i>Literature Prize and was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize. It is a modern classic of Irish fiction, a portrait of the insidious violence latent in small town life and of a frenzied young man lashing out at everyone, even himself.</p>