The Adventures of Shay Mouse - the Mouse from Longford

by Patrick McCabe, Margot McCabe (Illustrator)

Children's story from the award-winning author of Butcher Boy

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Patrick McCabe came to prominence with the publication of his third adult novel, The Butcher Boy, in 1992; the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in Britain and won the Irish Times-Aer Lingus Prize for fiction. McCabe's strength as an author lies in his ability to probe behind the veneer of respectability and conformity to reveal the brutality and the cloying and corrupting stagnation of Irish small-town life, but he is able to find compassion for the subjects of his fiction. His prose has a vitality and an anti-authoritarian bent, using everyday language to deconstruct the ideologies at work in Ireland between the early 1960s and the late 1970s. His books can be read as a plea for a pluralistic Irish culture that can encompass the past without being dominated by it.

McCabe is an Irish writer of mostly dark and violent novels of contemporary, often small-town, Ireland. His novels include The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written a children's book (The Adventures of Shay Mouse) and several radio plays broadcast by the RTÉ and the BBC Radio 4. The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto have both been adapted into films by Irish director Neil Jordan.

McCabe lives in Clones, Co. Monaghan with his wife and two daughters.

Pat McCabe is also credited with having invented the "Bog Gothic" genre.

Reviews

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a cute story about a mouse learning how to be brave and stand up for his friends! The names of all the animals are clever and the personalities are fun.

The edition I have is the third edition printed in conjunction with a youth theatre in Galway with the proceeds going to their program. I found it in a bookshop in Galway years ago and forgot I had it!