The Harbor Boys: A Memoir

“In navigating such turbulent emotional waters, Hamilton proves himself yet again a writer able to touch thousands of hearts as he delves deep into his own.” — USA Today

From the author of The Speckled People, one of the most lyrical and affecting memoirs of recent times, comes a powerful, deeply moving, and well-observed account of a young man's determined struggles to place himself in a world of his own making.

As a boy, Hugo Hamilton felt a strong desire to be rid of the confused identity he had inherited from his German mother and Irish father. Yet history's determined grip tightened its hold. A job at the harbor, rather than offering him respite, entangled him in a bitter feud between two fishermen—one Catholic, one Protestant. Against the background of the spiraling Troubles in the North, Hugo listened to the missing persons bulletins going out on the radio for his German cousin who mysteriously vanished somewhere on the west coast of Ireland and watched as the unfolding harbor duel moved toward a tragic end.

The Harbor Boys brilliantly charts a young man as he battles his emotional inheritance and struggles to forge an identity of his own.

As a boy, Hugo Hamilton felt a strong desire to be rid of the confused identity he had inherited from his German mother and Irish father. Yet history's determined grip tightened its hold. A job at the harbor, rather than offering him respite, entangled him in a bitter feud between two fishermen—one Catholic, one Protestant. Against the background of the spiraling Troubles in the North, Hugo listened to the missing persons bulletins going out on the radio for his German cousin who mysteriously vanished somewhere on the west coast of Ireland and watched as the unfolding harbor duel moved toward a tragic end. '

From the author of The Speckled People, one of the most lyrical and affecting memoirs of recent times, comes a powerful, deeply moving, and well-observed account of a young man's determined struggles to place himself in a world of his own making.

“What sets Hamilton distinctly apart from his contemporaries on the Dublin literary scene is the decisively hyphenate nature of his Irish-German identity. The Harbor Boys is the second volume of his memoirs in which the author ransacks the strange, melodramatic domesticity of a Dublin boyhood quite unlike any other.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review

"It’s unified by Hamilton’s all-consuming desire to escape, making this a universal tale of a teenager’s restlessness.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Superbly written and nuanced narrative in which Hamilton’s experiences coalesce to overcome a burden of unjustified guilt.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A painful, funny, densely beautiful memoir. . . . The rare quality of this memoir owes much to [Hamilton’s] novelistic skills . . . the cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art.” - New York Times Book Review

"The book, like Ireland herself, is preoccupied with betrayal though, happily, the former, at least, ends with redemption.” - Boston Globe

“In navigating such turbulent emotional waters, Hamilton proves himself yet again a writer able to touch thousands of hearts as he delves deep into his own.” - USA Today