Shadows on our Skin

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An exquisite, poignant story of an Irish boyhood in the 1970s

Derry in the 1970s: teenager Joe Logan is growing up in the teeth of the Troubles, having to cope with embittered parents, a brother who's been away and come back with money and a gun in his pocket, and the constant presence of the British Army in the background.

But when Joe develops a friendship with a young school teacher, a fresh perspective is brought to his familiar world.

Shadows on our Skin was shortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize for Fiction

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Joe Logan, at age twelve, endures the illness and alcoholism of his father, a ""retired hero"" of the Irish Rebellion, the teary bitterness of his mother who works at ""menial tasks"" because someone must, and the peevish sarcasm of the schoolmistress who mocks his fledgling poems. Around him, in contemporary Londonderry, some British soldiers die by sniper fire while others come by night to turn out his street, his house, his sodden father. No wonder young Joe, who wants only to be ""safely loved,"" is devoted to Kathleen, the young, lonely, chain-smoking schoolteacher who befriends him with hot chocolate and talk. No wonder he fears the homecoming of older brother Brendan, Dad's favorite, who will take over his father, his bed, his friend, and fulfill--with Joe's unwitting help--Kathleen's fear of ""something awful happening."" So Joe's innocence (""O God. . . don't let me grow up"") and his hopes die at once within doors and without. Domestic hostility is echoed by gunfire in the streets as this terse, understated novel evokes the gyp of war-torn childhood now in Northern Ireland. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.