The Gamal

May 13, 2013
Collins’s confident debut novel concerns Charlie McCarthy and his friends James Kent and Sinéad Halloran, three teenagers who live in the small town of Ballyronan, Northern Ireland. Charlie, James and Sinéad’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 Sinéad are inseparable until rumors surface that Sinéad was raped by a traveling musician known as the Rascal. Or was it consensual? Either way, James is distraught. Because James is distraught, Sinéad 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. Agent: Toby Eady, Toby Eady Associates (U.K.).

March 15, 2013
An adolescent boy in a rural Irish village recounts the terrible events that befall him and his closest friends, in this debut novel from an Irish author. Twenty-five-year-old Charlie McCarthy is the "Gamal" of the title--it's a Gaelic word that means "fool." He's a sobbing mess with a head full of bad wiring and a case of PTSD to beat the band. Charlie is writing down the story of his adolescence at the demand of his shrink. It starts haltingly, with Charlie inserting drawings, dictionary definitions and court transcripts in lieu of narration, which is what a traumatized, poorly educated young man might do. But by the time he finds his rhythm, Charlie isn't pulling any punches. "I seen fierce rotten things," he writes. "Your head would be fucked if you seen what I seen. See what I see." His story is ultimately about the fate of his only friends: James, a star-crossed lover who falls desperately in love with Sinead, a lovely young girl with a beautiful voice. "I'll mention others along the way," Charlie tells us. "The story is mainly about people. And the things they do to each other." Local rivalries, family feuds and Shakespearean tragedy all come into play in Collins' dark story, but it's Charlie's haunted voice that makes it come to life. A ferocious, heartbreaking confessional with a real voice.

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Starred review from May 1, 2013

The "Gamal" in Collins's debut novel is Charlie McCarthy, a socially impaired Ballyronan man in his mid-twenties. He narrates the story of Sinead and James, young lovers who, like Charlie, do not fit into the insular life of a County Cork village. Sinead and James dream of escape (perhaps even bringing Charlie with them), but events beyond their control separate them and reveal a fragility in their relationship that is exploited and abused by their peers. Sinead and James pay a tragic price for being too kind, too talented, and too much in love in a town where envy and mediocrity reinforce social ambitions and expectations. As Charlie observes and records the fate of his only friends, his dark, peculiar nature becomes suspect. VERDICT A brilliant, baffling, and twisted riff on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that readers will not be able to put down.--John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman

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Starred review from May 15, 2013
In Ballyronan, young Charlie McCarthy is called the gamal, Irish for (roughly) village idiot. But Charlie is no dummy, and it's he who tells, in his sometimes idiosyncratic voice, the sad, sad story of what happens to his best friends, James and Sinead. Who else will tell it, Charlie demands, cos no one else knows. Inseparable since childhood, James and Sinead become lovers, bound together by their passionate desire for listening to and making music. The sound of music is also Charlie's entr'e into their company, where, despite his challenges, he becomes their best friend. And later, when their relationship and lives begin to unravel, Charlie is prepared to do anything to help them, especially Sinead, who owns his heart completely. There are echoes of Romeo and Juliet in this story of star-crossed lovers. There is also Charlie's closely observed account of life in an Irish village, with all its pettiness and cruelty, especially to those who are in any way outsiders. In his first novel, Collins has done a masterful job of creating a memorable voice for his narrator and situations that are haunting in their poignancy and sadness. As characters, Sinead and James are as well crafted as Charlie himself, and all their lives and stories are unforgettable. The Gamal is an extraordinarily accomplished debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)