The Review of Contemporary Fiction

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
Eamonn Wall

Jamie O’Neill. At Swim, Two Boys. Scribner, 2002. 572 pp. $28.00.

At the heart of this sprawling and ambitious novel is the literal and metaphorical action of swimming, both in Dublin Bay and Ireland in the early part of the last century. Set in Glasthule in south County Dublin and close to the Martello Tower and Forty Foot memorialized by Joyce in the opening episode of Ulysses, At Swim, Two Boys brings together two boys, Jim Mack and Doyler, whose ambition is to swim out as far as Muglins Rock to claim it for themselves. The novel begins in the years preceding the 1916 Rising and reaches its climax during the Rising itself when, first, the boys swim to the island and, second, they take part in the Rising, which also had the objective of claiming an island. In tandem with these struggles, these teenagers are swimming against the moral tide to claim their identities as gay men. This aspect of the novel is beautifully rendered, provides an original insight into a hidden Ireland, and serves as a parallel text to Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry, in which Doyle provides a more heterosexual version of events surrounding the Rising. O’Neill’s portrayal of poverty-stricken Dublin is most convincing, though this otherwise fine novel is marred by some tedious overelaboration. However, it does mark O’Neill as a fine, emerging talent. Although his title pays homage to Flann O’Brien, O’Neill is really a disciple of Joyce: he renders Dublin itself as a luminous presence in his work and makes great use of the type of dramatic monologue so favored by the master. Certainly, he is an Irish writer to be watched who, at his best, is an original and colorful stylist. [Eamonn Wall]