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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
Easter Rising violence and historical combat
Language
Some
Period literary language; some strong content
Sexual Content
Some
Adult romantic content between two men in a period when it was illegal
Substance Use
Barely any
Period drinking
Emotional Intensity
Some
Themes of love, nationalism, sacrifice, and the weight of history on individual lives
What this book is about
Two boys — Jim and Doyler — meet at the Forty Foot bathing place outside Dublin and fall in love, making a pact to swim across Dublin Bay to an island on Easter Sunday. Behind them, the Easter Rising approaches. Jamie O'Neill's major literary novel is simultaneously a love story of extraordinary tenderness and a historical epic of Ireland's most consequential week. One of literary fiction's great achievements of the early 2000s.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Easter Rising historical violence
Gay romance in a period of illegality
Demanding literary form (~600 pages)
Reader Verification
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