On my shelf since:
One of my sister’s favorite books (at least that’s how I remember it). I tried to start this book sometime in the late 90’s and remember finding it too difficult. The voice? The punctuation? What exactly was my problem?
My copy’s origin story:
(Paperback 1995: University Book Store $8.21) Putting this book up to my forehead like Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent…I got nothing. Could have bought it in the late nineties, could have picked it up at a garage sale last week.
Why not until now:
Daunted by my first reaction I guess.
Review:
I usually write my review immediately after I finish the book, but this review had to take a bit of a backseat to something “more important” (tax season – blecch) and now I’m having some trouble. Paddy Clarke is blurring in with the other four or five books, pretty much in a row, that I’ve read with the father-son theme. Crow Road, Billy Bathgate (father-figure anyhow), The Road (not read or reviewed for this blog but Wow!), Summerland, and with The Brothers K next up. So I’ll do my darnedest not to repeat myself too much, but here goes.
Paddy Clarke is the good parts of those books done even better. It had the wonderfully disjointed narrative structure of Crow Road, but with such a sense of reflecting the way a kid’s thoughts jump around and still end up getting somewhere. Much of this felt like a collection of connected short stories, until, like a knitting a sweater, a subtle pattern develops and the individual rows slowly begin to grow into a novel.
Where Billy Bathgate is clearly narrated by the older version of the character in vocabulary and reflections, Paddy is a ten year-old telling as quickly as he can in the moment. Both have their merits, but you may be able to tell from my own style that I love a chaotic, child-like voice.
Okay, so The Road does tension and foreboding way better, but Paddy Clarke does a pretty good job in its much smaller way with its smaller, but still life changing, devastations. We see his confusion about his family (‘I didn’t understand. She was lovely. He was nice.’), know where it’s going long before he does, and can only watch as it all slowly unfurls.
And Paddy knows its audience and understands its scope (apparently encompassing every single thought a boy can think) much better than Summerland does. Also, this book is hilarious and, therefore, well-titled. The others not so much.
The Brothers K is up next and that will be the test to see if these books can go five for five with father-son books where the son loses (in some form) the father. Just like if there’s a dog in a story it’s going to die. Can it be done or it that the whole point of the genre? Stay tuned…
(Finished book Jan 21, 2026)
Payoff (pages per stars):
282/4 = 70.5 pages per star
Guest metrics:
- Surprising boy thoughts per page: minimum 282/282 = 1 boy insight per page at the very least
- Awards to stars: 1 to 4 (Guess fancy award folks didn’t like it as much as I did)
Misc Ratings (Out of 5):
- Quotation marks: 0
- Educational use of 1960’s Irish schoolboy slang (e.g gick, pong, mickey): 5
Bechdel Test: Still Fail! (Only three more books to go until I get to the next woman writer)
Off The Shelf 
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