We'd never seen anything like that around our place before. Not right in front of our eyes. You always heard about it, though. Through friends of friends. Or when The Mothers got together for coffee mornings. They'd sit around in a steamy kitchen circle like four mad witches, and dip ginger-snaps into Maxwell House until they went wobbly-warm, and take turns at saying, Jahear about so-and-so, Lord rest his soul, only thirty years old, poor creature?! They were brilliant at it. Scaring the shite out of each other, grinning inside. Jim Finnegan is thirteen years old and life in his world consists of dealing with the helter-skelter intensity of his rumbustious family, taking breakneck bike rides with his best friend, and coveting the local girls from afar - until one day when everything changes.
The Fields introduces Jim Finnegan, the youngest in his family with five raucous sisters. It has all the energy and fun of Roddy Doyle's early novels...but then Jim meets the local beauty, Saidhbh, and things take a turn for the modern - Independent on Sunday's Pick of 2013
Dublin in the 1980s - our hero Jim Finnegan, youngest in a family with five sisters, has his life changed by love and the challenges he faces at the hands of 'Father'. Funny, inventive debut. - The Times Culture picks for 2013
Author
About Kevin Maher
Kevin Maher was born and brought up in Dublin, moving to London in 1994 to begin a career in journalism. He wrote for the Guardian, the Observer and Time Out and was film editor of the Face until 2002, before joining The Times where for the last eight years he has been a feature writer, critic and columnist.
