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.