Patrick McCabe - The Butcher Boy

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Patrick McCabe discusses The Butcher Boy with James Naughtie. Recorded with an audience at the Linen Hall Library, Belfast. Inspired by comics and small-town life, Patrick McCabe was propelled into the literary limelight by his novel The Butcher Boy in 1992. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize and it has since become a modern classic. Set in an unnamed town in the border counties of Ireland, The Butcher Boy is is a precisely crafted, often lyrical and darkly humorous story about 11 year old Francie Brady and his descent into paranoia. Francie switches from boyhood mischief to an adolescent obsession with a school friend's mother which ends in horror. Patrick McCabe says it is a universal story and not particular to Ireland, and discloses his belief that it would be hard to find a publisher if he was writing it today. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Patrick McCabe Producer : Dymphna Flynn October's Bookclub choice : Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg (1992).