In the Spotlight: Damian McNicholl

[reviews_and_ramblings]

The Book: Set in the hills of Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, A SON CALLED GABRIEL is a deeply felt and often funny coming-of-age novel that is ultimately unforgettable.

Gabriel Harkin, the eldest of four children in a working-class family, struggles through a loving yet often brutal childhood. It's a turbulent time in Ulster, and in the staunchly Catholic community to which Gabriel belongs, the strict rules for belief and behavior are clear. As Gabriel begins to suspect that he's not like other boys, he tries desperately to lock away his feelings, and his fears. But secrets have a way of being discovered, and Gabriel learns that his might not be the only ones in the Harkin family....

Evoking a sense of time and place as compelling as ANGELA'S ASHES and AT SWIM, TWO BOYS, Damian McNicholl's A SON CALLED GABRIEL announces the arrival of a striking new literary voice.

...McNicholl's affable voice captures the wary innocence and budding sexuality of youth with polished originality. -- Richard Labonte, Q Syndicate, June 7, 2004

Amiable debut about a young man's coming of age in 1970s Norhtern Ireland...a nice start indeed. -- Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2004

McNicholl...has the Irish gift of humor and conjures the small-town mindset of the Harkin family in witty dialogue. -- Philadelphia Inquirer, June 23, 2004

Amazon: A Son Called Gabriel

The Author: Damian McNicholl is from Northern Ireland, attended law school in Cardiff, Wales, worked in London, and arrived in the US in the nineties where he slaved as an attorney while teaching himself to write fiction on the commute to Long Island and then NYC. His first novel--aka the 'cutting your teeth' one--still exists as bits and bytes on a floppy disk and will probably never get revisited because he got sick to death of the heroine after spending two years with her. So bored with her situations did he become (or was it an unwillingness to do yet another edit?), he packed her into a trunk and commenced his second novel that's a wee bit based on life experiences. (Literary purists and highbrows will despise him for saying that, but, hey, it's mostly fiction.) It's called A Son Called Gabriel, got a great cover slapped on its hardback, and beat a path to the bookshelves. And then it took on a life of its own by getting selected as an ABA BookSense Pick and becoming a finalist in a couple of literary awards. He is now busy with the screenplay of his second novel, a transatlantic tale set in London and NYC.

http://damianm.blogspot.com/

Top 100 Gay Novels List (*)

External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (simple - without photos)

External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (wanted - with photos)

*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.

Other titles not in the top 100 list:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM