Customer Reviews

A Son Called Gabriel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Gabriel Harkin is growing up in the 1960s and '70s in a working-class Catholic family. Northern Ireland at the time is riven by political and religious differences, and the Troubles form a backdrop to Gabriel's childhood and adolescence. But the more immediate cause of Gabriel's unhappiness during these years is his homosexuality. Bullied for his effeminacy, tormented by guilt when he gives way to what the Church tells him are sinful urges, Gabriel worries too that he is a disappointment to his father, who appears to favor Gabriel's athletic and mechanically-inclined brother James. Gabriel cannot confess his desires, not even to his beloved uncle, Father Brendan, but he does come to realize that his sexual proclivity is not the only secret being harbored in the Harkin family: some disgrace which his parents refuse to discuss evidently lies behind Brendan's entrance into the priesthood.

Damian McNicholl's A Son Called Gabriel is written in the first person and reads like a memoir. As such it will inevitably be compared to Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Remarkably, McNicholl's novel does not suffer from the comparison. It is so well written, and the author's portrayal of Gabriel is so vivid, that readers will be hard-pressed to remember they're holding a piece of fiction in their hands. A Son Called Gabriel creates a fully realistic community--Gabriel's parents and siblings and extended family of aunts and uncles and grandparents, the boys who taunt or befriend him at school--and a likable main character with whom readers cannot but sympathize as they watch him grow to manhood. It is a perfect novel. And, quiet story though it is, the book packs a wallop in its final pages when the secret of Brendan's retreat into the clergy is finally revealed.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

A SON CALLED GABRIEL goes beyond the conventional coming-of-age novel published in recent years. It delves deep into the emotions and tendencies of young Gabriel Harkin as he grows up in a tightly knit Catholic community in Northern Ireland. As he matures his own sphere of awareness expands beyond his own house and school and includes such serious topics as his own sexuality and strained relations between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ulster. Throughout the narrative Gabriel is simultaneously confronted and compounded by the myriad of secrets hidden deep in the Harkin family. I was pleasantly surprised of how much I enjoyed this novel. I often found myself looking forward to the next possible time when I can pick it up again and resume following Gabriel's adventures through young adulthood. Recommended!

A Son called Gabriel begins in nineteen sixty-four when Gabriel is in 2nd grade. The boy lives in the small town of Knockburn in Northern Island, a catholic stronghold in a troubled region, where daily life is shaped by two over riding forces: the church and hatred of Protestants. Damian McNicholl has written a lively and spirited story of one boy's journey through adolescence - a boy who is "sensitive" and "different" without really knowing the reasons why. As Gabriel struggles to come to terms with his sexuality throughout a loving, but often brutal childhood, a family mystery is steadily revealed involving his Uncle Brendan, who years ago, surreptitiously joined the priesthood.

Written as a series of vignettes, each chapter paints a portrait of Gabriel's troubled life. Gabriel is taunted and teased by schoolyard bullies, he plays in the "muck" with the senior girls rather than playing football with the boys, he brushes the hair of his sister's dolls, and he gets his first look at a dirty magazine. Later in the story, we witness his anxious ridden preparations for his O level examinations, and his guilty shame about his dalliances with other boys. Aware of his sensitivity at a young age, Gabriel struggles to please his devout Catholic mother, and working class father, while dealing with over-zealous aunties, and competitive cousins.

When older, Gabriel is sent to Saint Malachy, and Irish Catholic School for boys - where boys are expected to be tough, assertive, and where any feminine qualities are an inexcusable sign of weakness. This coincides with Gabriel's teenage years, and his inevitable attraction to men. His guilt-ridden angst becomes more intense, and McNicholl does a great job of conveying the psyche of a tortured, tormented, and conflicted boy. When Gabriel commits the "abomination" - furtive couplings and fumbling with schoolmates - he loathes himself afterwards because he's actually enjoyed it. Torn between his rigid catholic upbringing, and his desire to physically and emotionally be with boys, Gabriel spends many a day churning over his feelings, remaining frustrated and confused. He's wracked with denial, and has days "when doubt as dark as winter nights falls upon his shoulders," he feasts on doubt and intelligence, "and it fills him with an angst, that it had all been a fluke."

McNicholl is a blunt, gutsy writer, with a gift for rough humour. He lovingly peoples his Irish landscape of farms and homes with oddballs, eccentrics, and bawdy children. And Gabriel's observations and digressions on his friends and family are lively and vivid, which makes for incredibly funny and heartfelt reading. The action is constantly seen through Gabriel's eyes, and his insights into the sometimes-confusing adult world around him spark the novel. At times, there are so many aunts, uncles, cousins, and schoolmates, that it's hard for the reader to keep track of them all, and without a focused storyline, the narrative does tend to wander. Some readers may also find that the deep secret revealed at the end of the book is a little contrived, because it takes the focus away from the issue of Gabriel's acceptance of his homosexuality. The dreaded secret doesn't actually accomplish much in terms of closure or character development. But the dry-eyed, earnest and sincere exchanges throughout the story do give the novel an honesty and credibility that makes A Son Called Gabriel an artfully defiant work of fiction. Mike Leonard June 04.

In 1960's Catholic Ireland, young Gabriel Harkin abides by the tenets of a religion that condemns his burgeoning homosexuality, forcing him into the masculine mold of his peers and he is endlessly tortured by bullies who sense his weakness and prey on such vulnerability. The oldest of four children, Gabriel fights for acknowledgment from a father who favors the younger and more physical James, taunting his older son about his sensitivity, a negative quality in the father's eyes. Gabriel is confused by the mixed messages of his religion and the prurient interest of others boys who prey on his innocence. Gabriel realizes what is expected of him as a male and strives to deliver, but is constantly undermined by his father's criticism and his own natural inclinations.

Ireland is no easy place for a sexually ambiguous boy to survive, the country awash in sports fanaticism and passion for the ideals and activities of the IRA, the Troubles with the Protestants growing daily more violent. Gabriel's artistic temperament and lack of athletic skill hinders his acceptance by the other boys at St. Malachy's, making him an easy target. Caught in a confusing mix of emotions, with no guidance but the authoritative dogma of the Catholic religion, Gabriel's isolation is complete. He bears the burden of a sexual preference that is increasingly real and unacceptable. He simply cannot be like the others boys and they easily intuit this flaw, seizing on Gabriel's inability to protect himself.

Gabriel's mother is constantly "sorting him out", which means she temporizes, taking no action, while his father belittles and questions his son's masculinity. Uncle Brendan, a missionary priest in Africa, is held up as a model for Gabriel and shows confidence in the boy's ability when he visits. But is the focus of a family secret that the boy cannot unravel, since the adults refuse to talk about it. In the midst of a raucous Irish-Catholic family, Gabriel is surrounded by siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmothers, all of whom have something to say about his behavior and future. Their unhelpful views aside, there is really no one willing to address Gabriel's particular dilemma and he is left to his own resources.

His rite-of-passage into adolescence problematic and riddled with anxiety, Gabriel does his best to pass what he refers to as God's test, always terrified that some word or behavior will give him away. Gabriel has been taught that what he wants is sinful, an abomination. He is flawed and doesn't know how to fix it, but confession is out of the question. Although he is angry at God for giving him this test, Gabriel knows that he will never turn away from God, for then he would be forever alone. McNicholl perfectly renders Gabriel's confusion, denial, anger and finally acceptance of a world in which he doesn't fit and the dawning realization of how different his life might be. The geography of his past forever altered, Gabriel looks to the freedom of anonymity and an opportunity to start over. Luan Gaines/2005.

In this first novel, Damian McNicholl compellingly portrays a Catholic boy coming of age in Northern Ireland during during the "troubles" of the 1960s and 70s. Against this larger conflict, and to some degree reflecting it, Gabriel has troubles of his own, the greatest of which is his heartsick fear that he is homosexual and eternally damned because of it. I was completely caught up in this terrific story about secrets and the nature of family bonds and loyalties. It's fluidly paced, often funny, and never sentimental. The characters are convincingly complex--brutal and kind, honest and false in shifting proportions. No easy answers at the end, either, but a lovely sense of release.

Suddenly there are lots and lots of these Irish coming-of-age stories. I suppose it all began with Angela's Ashes. Some of them are mediocre, some are terrific. A Son Called Gabriel is one of the better-than-average ones, and it's author Damian McNicholl's first novel. Kudos.
Set in Northern Ireland between 1964-1978, it follows the struggles of Catholic Gabriel to overcome all the many barriers tossed in his path as he strived to fit into not only his conflicted community but also his family. At the core is Gabriel's awareness/fear of his homosexual tendencies and his efforts to hide/transform/deny the increasing proof to not only himself but to the world at large.
Definitely worth a read.

In the first sentence of A Son Called Gabriel, Damian McNicholl's narrator tells us, "The choice was school or the big stick and seemed easy to make." At six, Gabriel Harkin knows a beating is painful but finite-dealing with the large and vicious bullies at school will be never-ending. To his dismay, he finds logic must bow to custom: Catholic boys in Northern Ireland must use their own fists to deal with bullies or they are "sissies" and no one in Gabriel's repressive world respects a "sissy-boy." His mother defines the accepted rules of behavior for her family based on, "what the neighbors, priests or relatives think."

Gabriel's sometimes painful efforts to survive in this world are described with sage humor in this moving and witty tale by McNicholl. In a world where he is expected to shine at football and aspire to nothing more than driving a lorry as his father does, Gabriel realizes he is different. He loves books and story-telling. He is told he favors his Uncle Brendan, a missionary priest in Africa. This is ambiguous praise: in a world full of secrets and lies, a "big secret" is attached to Uncle Brendan.

The harsh reality of life in deeply divided and often dangerous Northern Ireland has been captured by McNicholl as seen by a pragmatic boy who has never known anything else. Barbed wire is everywhere but just something to look through or climb over.

McNicholl creates scenes and characters so vivid and memorable in both visual and emotional detail the reader has the sense of having been part of Gabriel's struggle to assert his individuality and grow into the man he is meant to be. I found myself so involved in Gabriel's world the book was hard to put down. I strongly recommend it.

A Son Called Gabriel
By: Damien McNicholl

I had the privilege of receiving this book in the mail from Damien's publicist Joan. She had read some of my stuff here at Bella and thought that I could read and review Damien's book. Was I surprised when I did a little research on the book before it came. Damien's book, A Son Called Gabriel, was chosen as one of Advocate magazine's summer reads. So some of you may have already read it. So, after digging around a bit and talking about the book with Joan, I became very interested in reading it. Unfortunately summer classes got in the way along with some health problems and I wasn't able to read his book as quickly as I would have liked. But a black widow's bite, and Public Speaking behind me, I sat down and read this little gem of a novel.

The story is obviously centered around a young bloke named Gabriel. This is his story. It is a story of coming to terms with one's self being a homosexual. Set in the wonderful distant land of England, Gabriel struggles not only with himself, but with his family. He searches for a place for himself inside of his very entertaining and somewhat dysfunctional family. Damien presents a wonderfully compassionate and endearing tale that catches you from page one. Unlike similar stories, Damien grabs your attention and hold on to it through the end of the book. He makes you want to flip the page in order to read what is next to come. He makes you fall in love with Gabriel, a boy who is very sensitive, gets bullied at school and on the playground, and is constantly tormented because he'd rather play tag or other games with the girls instead of being rough and tumble playing football with the boys. What grabbed me was the fact that I could totally understand and comprehend Gabriel because I could see myself in Gabriel. I could compare our lives and how we developed as gay men. And like myself, Gabriel achieves success in fighting off the bullies and overcoming that difficult stage in almost any sensitive child's life. But one victory does not lead to another. Damien well writes the struggle of the internal soul. The soul that fights against what it feels because the church it belongs to says it is an abomination. That being gay is like being a child molester or the most perverted of society. With the internal struggle comes the external. Through countless escapades with both genders, dealing with the ultra-catholic mother and family, and with sexual abuse of his own, Gabriel becomes the man he was intended to be.

So why don't you go grab yourself a copy and join in on discovering life through the eye's of young Gabriel. This tale is sure to thrill you as it did me. You are bound to find some piece of yourself in this wonderful tale spun together by a magnificent freshman author named Damien McNicholl. The story will remind you of the best times, and remind you of the worst. But you won't be disappointed when you open the cover and loose yourself in Gabriel's tale.

A definite read that would be a sin to miss!

5 out of 5 triangles is what I give this story. Well done Damien!

Jase ;0)

Jason P. Ruel.

Set in Northern Ireland in the mid 1960s A Son Called Gabriel tells the story of a young Catholic boy's coming if age. Gabriel, a sensitive boy, is different from the rest of his working class family and his peers. He is bullied at school, and otherwise taken advantage of. The story tells of his confused feelings with girls and boys; his abortive attempts with girls; and his secret gropings with other boys which bringing him temporary pleasure but leave him guilt ridden. He has a champion, his uncle Father Brendan, a man who is surrounded by a certain mystery, the detail of which we eventually learn.
Gabriel narrates his own story, it is a tender and moving story, occasionally funny, well written and well worth reading.

"A cracking good read" one of McNicholl's blurb-writers put it...and it's true! I read it in one sitting. Anyone with children or who may want to have kids should read this novel. It will prepare you to protect and raise them lovingly whatever their proclivities may be. McNicholls is an accomplished writer who makes the reader care deeply about his protagonist. Well done, sir!