Bernard MacLaverty

The Anatomy School

A coming-of-age story of a northern Irish boy getting out from under the thumb of mother, church, and country.

Set in Belfast in the late sixties, Bernard MacLaverty's new novel takes us into Martin Brennan's last semester of high school, when he finds old friendships tested and is forced to face the unknown. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science, and sex; he must learn the value of friendship; but most of all he must pass his exams—at any cost. Celebrating the desire to speak and the need to say nothing, The Anatomy School moves from the enforced silence of Martin's Catholic school retreat, through the hilarious tea-and-biscuits repartee of his eccentric elders, to the awkward wit and loose profanity of his two friends—the charismatic Kavanagh and the subversive Blaise Foley.

With characteristic "wise humor" (Publishers Weekly), MacLaverty "moves beyond the cloistered realm of school to capture the rhythms and pressures of provincial life, as well as [Martin's] desire to overcome them." (Denver Post). This absorbing, often funny novel "turns high anxieties and pain into well wrought fiction. MacLaverty has a wider vision, greater depth and technical craft than J. D. Salinger, a more subtle style than William Golding and a moral imagination to match that of James Joyce" ([Toronto] Globe and Mail). Reading group guide included.

"This quirky, appealing, new coming-of-age novel...celebrates the small, mighty joys of being alive."—Boston Herald

"[T]he reader is captivated by its various evocations of voice and scene. Action in this story yields, happily, to rhyme and rhythm of memory. . . . MacLaverty suggests that the big questions, such as how to find one's place in the world, are answered not through serious or conventional means but in unexpected, quietly subversive moments. . . . Bernard MacLaverty's beautifully written portrayal of how a mind changes as it acquires new knowledge is masterful."—The Times Literary Supplement

"Exceptionally skilled at entering into the lives of the lonely or impaired, [MacLaverty] depicts unfulfilment with an authenticity unmatched in Irish fiction since James Joyce's Dubliners."—The Sunday [London] Times

"[T]he author's trademark qualities—a clean, elegant style, combined with compassion, wit and moments of great insight—are inscribed on every page."—Literary Review [London]

"MacLaverty is a master of many moods and this genial, intelligent novel finds him at his relaxed best."—The Sunday [London] Telegraph

"[A] high-spirited, strongly imagined work, full of a doughty integrity and robust eloquence . . . [a] celebration of friendship, an exhilarating reconstruction of male adolescence."—The Independent [London]