#BookReview of #FunAndGames by John Patrick McHugh

‘A stunning debut novel following a teenage boy as he comes of age on the west coast of Ireland’
– Fun and Games

[ About Fun and Games ]

Seventeen-year-old John Masterson has no idea what he wants. It’s his last summer on the small island where he has grown up and he should be enjoying the weeks until his exam results come through. Instead, he’s working mind-numbing shifts at the local hotel and trying to keep his head down after his mother’s nude sext to another man was leaked to the whole island.

As John joins the local senior football team, gets caught up in fights and parties, and embarks on a tentative relationship with his slightly older co-worker Amber that he feels both proud and ashamed of, he can almost pretend that this summer will last forever. But soon John must face up to the choices before him: to stay or leave, to stand out or fit in, and whether to love and let himself be loved, despite or perhaps because of, the flaws that make us all human.

[ My Review ]

Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh published April 24th with 4th Estate and is described as ‘a darkly comic, beautifully crafted debut novel that is full of feeling both harsh and tender. It takes in social class and its firm borders, manhood and its frailties, family and, of course, love.’

Discovering a novel from a perspective I have never read before can be quite challenging but, with Fun and Games, John Patrick McHugh has achieved just that. Set over the summer holidays in a small community on the west coast of Ireland in 2009, we meet John Masterson. He is seventeen-years-old and on the cusp of manhood, with all that that entails, He plays Gaelic football, with an ambition to play county, and works part-time in the local hotel.

As he awaits the results of his Leaving Certificate exams, he suffers the same anxieties and stresses of many teenagers but John’s mother has added to his woes. A nude picture she had sent to someone, not his father, is now circulating the island causing John severe and very understandable embarrassment. His father has left the family home and tensions are high.

John has tentatively started a relationship with Amber, an older work colleague. Exploring ‘how far he can go’ with her confuses and frustrates him as his immaturity and lack of knowledge trips him up on occasion. His friends are quite competitive in discussions, often slagging and belittling each other’s conquests but, inexplicably for John, he likes Amber yet is also embarrassed by her. He plays their relationship down in other company but she is creeping under his skin leaving him further confused.

As the exam results loom, with the possibility of heading for college in Galway on the horizon, there is a sense of change in the dynamic between John and his friends. This summer is the one that will decide their imminent futures and although it’s exciting, it’s also quite scary. John has decisions to make and, as he struggles to see the wood from the trees, we get insights into his thought-processes, his fears and the mistakes he makes along the way. When he gets selected for the local senior team and training for the Championship gets under way, John and a few of his close buddies are thrown in with the big boys. This immersion into the world of adult masculinity is mind-blowing for the lads, yet also extremely competitive, as they fight for their place on the team.

Fun and Games is very much written from an Irish perspective with Gaelic Football featuring very strongly throughout, but swap that for any sport and this book could slot in anywhere. The voice of this young man is loud and clear with his internal thoughts and dreams laid bare for every reader. Those heady and awkward days of post Leaving Cert exams are very clear in my own mind. You leave school thinking you are a grown up but that feeling is soon shot down when you realise the enormity of what’s ahead. Off to college, away from home for the first time, is a rite of passage for many and the fear to step up and step out is truly scary and very brave. As John tries to process his every move, and attempts to find his place in this new world he is embarking upon, his trepidation and dread are palpable and brilliantly explored.

Awkward, intense, beautiful and sensitive, Fun and Games captures a fleeting moment, a mere couple of weeks, in the life of a young man. Wonderfully portrayed with warmth and heartbreak it is a tender portrayal of adolescence, a very authentic debut from John Patrick McHugh.

[Thank you to Harper Collins Ireland for a copy of Fun and Games in return for my honest review]

[ Bio ]