Laff

Irish-Scottish memoir from the author of GALLOWAY STREET

'Boyle's memories are marked with fondness rather than sentimentality...with a sad twist in the tale guaranteed to grab you'

'All the moving, tentative quality of male friendship is caught in flight. The period detail is exact, the ear for dialogue deadly'

'The significance of this friendship distinguishes Boyle's memoir from others...Far less self-pitying than Angela's Ashes'

'Deftly chronicles a 1950s Catholic childhood. Particularly well drawn is the intensity of that first special friendship which one can never fully leave behind'

John Boyle left Scotland at nineteen and has lived most of his adult life abroad. He taught English in Spain and London, managed language schools in Belgium and Holland, then set up a communications consultancy in Brussels. Now a writer and columnist, he still does commercial voiceovers in Brussels, New York and London. He is the author of Galloway Street and Laff.

John, a teenager, struggles with loneliness and alienation in Ferguslie Park, a rough housing scheme in 1950's Scotland. At school he makes friends with Laff, a Ferguslie boy who shares his dream of escape. Their friendship becomes a fortress against the mockery they face at school and the menace of 'Feegie' - and their dreams are only heightened when rock'n roll, jukeboxes and Teddy Boys erupt like a splash of technicolour into their monochrome lives. They yearn for sex, dream of romance, discover jealousy,get into fights... When tragedy intervenes, John is in danger of 'settling for less' - giving up on their youthful dream. But Laff's influence persists...

John Boyle

'Compels complete attention because everything here, down to the last full stop, has been carefully considered...a precise and deeply moving evocation of the vanished Irish immigrant world that once flourished in Scotland. And of its many achievements, surely the most important of all is that Galloway Street describes a miserable childhood without a shred of self-pity'

'An affecting account...Boyle refreshes the familiar material with an engagingly plain, colloquial style...valuable as a historic record, but this eventually seems incidental to its value as a recollection of a fairly ordinary life in a particular time and place'

'Full of humour in the midst of grinding poverty'

'Very moving, funny and insightful . . . obviously written from the heart'

A boy's story, the everyday life of the child of immigrants, by a writer of great promise

'Sharply observed...powerful and, often, funny'

John Boyle was born and raised in Scotland but he could never feel Scottish. His parents were poor immigrants from the West of Ireland who came to Scotland to find work and eventually settled in Paisley, where John was the first of six children. 
 
Galloway Street beautifully captures the poverty and the rough humour of the family's life in the Paisley tenements, the songs and stories of their Irish Catholic relatives and the often uneasy relationships with their Scottish Protestant neighbours. It also shows how the boy is marked at the age of ten by an extended stay with his spinster aunt on the remote island of Achill, as he begins to understand the life his parents left behind. 
 
This is a book about exile and belonging, about the poignancy of growing up Irish in Scotland, so close to the place your mother still calls home. It is a truthful, funny and moving evocation of a unique place and time, experienced through the eyes of a child.

John Boyle

Praise for Galloway Street

'Compels complete attention because everything here, down to the last full stop, has been carefully considered...a precise and deeply moving evocation of the vanished Irish immigrant world that once flourished in Sc ...

'An affecting account...Boyle refreshes the familiar material with an engagingly plain, colloquial style...valuable as a historic record, but this eventually seems incidental to its value as a recollection of a fair ...

'Full of humour in the midst of grinding poverty'

'Compels complete attention because everything here, down to the last full stop, has been carefully considered...a precise and deeply moving evocation of the vanished Irish immigrant world that once flourished in Sc ...

'An affecting account...Boyle refreshes the familiar material with an engagingly plain, colloquial style...valuable as a historic record, but this eventually seems incidental to its value as a recollection of a fair ...

'Full of humour in the midst of grinding poverty'

'Compels complete attention because everything here, down to the last full stop, has been carefully considered...a precise and deeply moving evocation of the vanished Irish immigrant world that once flourished in Sc ...

'An affecting account...Boyle refreshes the familiar material with an engagingly plain, colloquial style...valuable as a historic record, but this eventually seems incidental to its value as a recollection of a fair ...

'Full of humour in the midst of grinding poverty'

Books by John Boyle

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