The Gamal
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Meet Charlie. People think he's crazy. But he's not. People think he's stupid. But he's not. People think he's innocent...
He's the Gamal.
Charlie has a story to tell, about his best friends Sinead and James and the bad things that happened. But he can't tell it yet, at least not 'til he's worked out where the beginning is.
Is the beginning long ago when Sinead first spoke up for him after Charlie got in trouble at school for the millionth time? Or was it later, when Sinead and James followed the music and found each other? Or was it later still on that terrible night when something unspeakable happened after closing time and someone chose to turn a blind eye?
Charlie has promised Dr Quinn he'll write 1,000 words a day, but it's hard to know which words to write. And which secrets to tell.
This is the story of the dark heart of an Irish village, of how daring to be different can be dangerous, and how there is nothing a person will not do for love.
Exhilarating, bitingly funny and unforgettably poignant, this is a story like no other. This is the story of the Gamal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Collins's confident debut novel concerns Charlie McCarthy and his friends James Kent and Sin ad Halloran, three teenagers who live in the small town of Ballyronan, Northern Ireland. Charlie, James and Sin ad's sidekick, is the village "gamal," an "eejit" whom, he says, people find "less-ish." "You won't like me," he predicts, but his off-kilter voice is incredibly appealing. James and Sin ad are inseparable until rumors surface that Sin ad was raped by a traveling musician known as the Rascal. Or was it consensual? Either way, James is distraught. Because James is distraught, Sin ad is distraught, and their relationship is in danger of falling apart. The drama comes to a head in the worst possible way, and it's understandable how Charlie comes to suffer from PTSD. (His doctor has convinced him to write out his story as part of the treatment.) Collins takes the familiar coming-of-age storyline of adolescent romance and tragedy and artfully depicts adolescent emotional distress without straying into melodrama. The novel, framed in flashback so that the story emerges through Charlie's remembrances and transcripts from the resultant hearings, is cannily paced and rich with Irish dialect.
