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The Harbor Boys: A Memoir – A Powerful Story of Irish-German Identity, Emotional Inheritance, and Ireland's Troubles
“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.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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205 people want to read
About the author
Hugo Hamilton
41 books95 followersHugo Hamilton is an Irish writer.
Hamilton's mother was a German who travelled to Ireland in 1949 for a pilgrimage, married an Irishman, and settled in the country. His father was a militant nationalist who insisted that his children should speak only German or Irish, but not English, a prohibition the young Hugo resisted inwardly. "The prohibition against English made me see that language as a challenge. Even as a child I spoke to the walls in English and secretly rehearsed dialogue I heard outside," he wrote later.
As a consequence of this, he grew up with three languages - English, Irish and German - and a sense of never really belonging to any: "There were no other children like me, no ethnic groups that I could attach myself to".
Hamilton became a journalist, and then a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998.
Following a year spent in Berlin on a cultural scholarship, he completed his memoir of childhood, The Speckled People (2003), which went on to achieve widespread international acclaim. Telling the story through the eyes of his childhood self, it painfully evoked the struggle to make sense of a bizarre adult world. It "triumphantly avoids the Angela's Ashes style of sentimental nostalgia and victim claims," wrote Hermione Lee in the The Guardian . "The cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art," commented James Lasdun in the New York Times. The story is picked up in the 2006 volume, The Sailor in the Wardrobe.
In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel (The Talkative Island), in which Hamilton retraced the journey Heinrich Böll made in Ireland that was to be the basis of his bestselling book Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) in 1957. Hamilton's most recent novel, Disguise was published on June 6, 2008.
Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ham...
Hamilton's mother was a German who travelled to Ireland in 1949 for a pilgrimage, married an Irishman, and settled in the country. His father was a militant nationalist who insisted that his children should speak only German or Irish, but not English, a prohibition the young Hugo resisted inwardly. "The prohibition against English made me see that language as a challenge. Even as a child I spoke to the walls in English and secretly rehearsed dialogue I heard outside," he wrote later.
As a consequence of this, he grew up with three languages - English, Irish and German - and a sense of never really belonging to any: "There were no other children like me, no ethnic groups that I could attach myself to".
Hamilton became a journalist, and then a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998.
Following a year spent in Berlin on a cultural scholarship, he completed his memoir of childhood, The Speckled People (2003), which went on to achieve widespread international acclaim. Telling the story through the eyes of his childhood self, it painfully evoked the struggle to make sense of a bizarre adult world. It "triumphantly avoids the Angela's Ashes style of sentimental nostalgia and victim claims," wrote Hermione Lee in the The Guardian . "The cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art," commented James Lasdun in the New York Times. The story is picked up in the 2006 volume, The Sailor in the Wardrobe.
In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel (The Talkative Island), in which Hamilton retraced the journey Heinrich Böll made in Ireland that was to be the basis of his bestselling book Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) in 1957. Hamilton's most recent novel, Disguise was published on June 6, 2008.
Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ham...
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 30, 2011
‘Maybe you have to live under cover for a while before you can find your true character.’
‘The Sailor in the Wardrobe’ is Hugo Hamilton’s second memoir, and is focussed on his transition from his restricted boyhood in Dublin to independent adulthood. The sailor referred to in the title is Hugo’s paternal grandfather, John Hamilton, who died while serving in the Royal Navy. A photograph of John Hamilton in his uniform is kept in the back of his father’s wardrobe: in his father’s eyes any form of service for the British is viewed with anger and shame.
‘..children forget the real damage that was done and start repairing things with their imagination.’
As Hugo makes the transition from childhood to adulthood, he continues to describe (as he did in ‘The Speckled People’) and increasingly to question the experience of belonging and of not belonging. He works at the harbour at a local fishery where his boss Dan Hurley is engaged in a religious war with another fisherman. Hugo’s best friend, Packer, ignores him for a time without any explanation, and Hugo continually challenges his father’s rules.
‘No matter how much I try to be the opposite, I will still end up like my father. It’s how evolution works, with every son slipping into his father’s shoes, no matter how different your clothes are or how long your hair is or how different the music is you’re listening to.’
The conflicts between father and son are very much a part of Hugo’s journey to adulthood. In one scene, after telling his father that he desires ignorance rather than knowledge, Hugo has a bowl of stewed apple thrown at him. And towards the end, I really liked reading about Jack Hamilton’s abandoning his own rules while discovering how to link an initially incompatible mechanism between two power stations: one made in Germany and the other in England. Jack Hamilton started speaking English, with a Cork accent.
When one of his German cousins, Stefan, arrives in Ireland and then goes missing in Connemara, the entire family is puzzled. It seems that Hugo is not the only member of his generation seeking to redefine his identity.
Hugo Hamilton’s recounting of these memories and events is interesting and insightful and while ‘The Sailor in the Wardrobe’ echoes ‘The Speckled People’, Hugo is becoming self-aware enough to seek his own, different place in the world. There’s a hope that he can move beyond the past, the weight of history, into a future where history is an aspect rather than an anchor.
I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as ‘The Speckled People’. Partly it’s because I kept forgetting to differentiate between Hugo’s impressions as a child from his gradual shift from adolescence to adulthood. I’d like to read a third instalment, but not just yet.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
‘The Sailor in the Wardrobe’ is Hugo Hamilton’s second memoir, and is focussed on his transition from his restricted boyhood in Dublin to independent adulthood. The sailor referred to in the title is Hugo’s paternal grandfather, John Hamilton, who died while serving in the Royal Navy. A photograph of John Hamilton in his uniform is kept in the back of his father’s wardrobe: in his father’s eyes any form of service for the British is viewed with anger and shame.
‘..children forget the real damage that was done and start repairing things with their imagination.’
As Hugo makes the transition from childhood to adulthood, he continues to describe (as he did in ‘The Speckled People’) and increasingly to question the experience of belonging and of not belonging. He works at the harbour at a local fishery where his boss Dan Hurley is engaged in a religious war with another fisherman. Hugo’s best friend, Packer, ignores him for a time without any explanation, and Hugo continually challenges his father’s rules.
‘No matter how much I try to be the opposite, I will still end up like my father. It’s how evolution works, with every son slipping into his father’s shoes, no matter how different your clothes are or how long your hair is or how different the music is you’re listening to.’
The conflicts between father and son are very much a part of Hugo’s journey to adulthood. In one scene, after telling his father that he desires ignorance rather than knowledge, Hugo has a bowl of stewed apple thrown at him. And towards the end, I really liked reading about Jack Hamilton’s abandoning his own rules while discovering how to link an initially incompatible mechanism between two power stations: one made in Germany and the other in England. Jack Hamilton started speaking English, with a Cork accent.
When one of his German cousins, Stefan, arrives in Ireland and then goes missing in Connemara, the entire family is puzzled. It seems that Hugo is not the only member of his generation seeking to redefine his identity.
Hugo Hamilton’s recounting of these memories and events is interesting and insightful and while ‘The Sailor in the Wardrobe’ echoes ‘The Speckled People’, Hugo is becoming self-aware enough to seek his own, different place in the world. There’s a hope that he can move beyond the past, the weight of history, into a future where history is an aspect rather than an anchor.
I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as ‘The Speckled People’. Partly it’s because I kept forgetting to differentiate between Hugo’s impressions as a child from his gradual shift from adolescence to adulthood. I’d like to read a third instalment, but not just yet.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
June 25, 2008
A continuation of Hamilton's memoir "The Speckled People" Well-written and recommended.
June 22, 2019
Loved it
When I finished reading “The Speckled People” I didn’t know what to read next. What could follow such a finely crafted beautifully written book? Surely anything that followed would be a let down.
Then I found “The Sailor in the Wardrobe.” Yes I remember him, he was the sailor in his father’s wardrobe with the soft eyes. What followed was pitch perfect. Hamilton’s coming of age in postwar Dublin finding his way while the rest of the war torn world tried to do the same hit all the high notes as well as the low ones.
There is a kind of trust that the reader puts into entering a book. We let someone’s thoughts into our own and let them take us through a journey not knowing where we are going, who we’ll meet along the way and where we will end up. That journey becomes a part of us for better or worse. Hamilton’s beautifully articulated memoirs have left me richer for having shared his journey. I look forward to where we’ll go next.
When I finished reading “The Speckled People” I didn’t know what to read next. What could follow such a finely crafted beautifully written book? Surely anything that followed would be a let down.
Then I found “The Sailor in the Wardrobe.” Yes I remember him, he was the sailor in his father’s wardrobe with the soft eyes. What followed was pitch perfect. Hamilton’s coming of age in postwar Dublin finding his way while the rest of the war torn world tried to do the same hit all the high notes as well as the low ones.
There is a kind of trust that the reader puts into entering a book. We let someone’s thoughts into our own and let them take us through a journey not knowing where we are going, who we’ll meet along the way and where we will end up. That journey becomes a part of us for better or worse. Hamilton’s beautifully articulated memoirs have left me richer for having shared his journey. I look forward to where we’ll go next.
January 12, 2020
The sailor in the wardrobe is an interesting view into an irish-german identity after the second world War. It's a coming of age story, a discussion of what makes the protagonist Hugo into who he is and shows an attempt to explain the relationships we have with our parents. How can we live with our historical inheritance? How do we live with the fact that our parents history, their world, is so different to ours and still manages to infuse our entire life? It's well written, and it forms a clear picture of the time and place it inhabits.
It also made me realize I'm over murky male identity searches presented in a first person narrative that don't make space for women. I encountered a multitude of male characters with their own history who relate to Hugo, but women are either motherly or focuspoints for sexual attraction. It's an overwhelmingly male world, and while I can enjoy those, I would enjoy them so much more if there were other narratives as omnipresent in literature.
It also made me realize I'm over murky male identity searches presented in a first person narrative that don't make space for women. I encountered a multitude of male characters with their own history who relate to Hugo, but women are either motherly or focuspoints for sexual attraction. It's an overwhelmingly male world, and while I can enjoy those, I would enjoy them so much more if there were other narratives as omnipresent in literature.
October 3, 2023
Denhär tog så lång tid att läsa. Men den var väldigt intressant och viktig då den handlade om hur lands-trauman påverkar människor och FAMILJER. Och faktumet att trauman går i arv, förs vidare till den nya generationen. Väldigt intressant då Hugos mamma var från Tyskland, som varit en förövare i krig, och hans pappa var från Irland, som varit offer, och hur deras kärlek förenar dom och att de båda förstår varandra genom vad de och deras land gått igenom.
((Undrar så mycket om Hugo var kär i Packer eller om han bara beundrade honom jättemycket ändå, men det var fint oavsett))
((Undrar så mycket om Hugo var kär i Packer eller om han bara beundrade honom jättemycket ändå, men det var fint oavsett))
August 7, 2019
This is a lovely novel about finding identity. Hugo has an Irish father with very strong views of country, and a German mother who fled Germany after the Second World War. Caught between two people with strong and passionate views, Hugo is lost.
A prisoner of his parents' past, Hugo tries to forge his own path, and his learning curve takes us for an interesting and enlightening journey.
A prisoner of his parents' past, Hugo tries to forge his own path, and his learning curve takes us for an interesting and enlightening journey.
August 19, 2025
Denna var inte för mig, tyvärr. Den har några intressanta bitar, som förhållningssättet till världen efter andra världskriget, fisket och det fanns fina skildringar. Men boken bär titeln om någon som nämns 3-4 ggr. Jag hade helt andra förväntningar än att läsa om en ej ännu vuxen kille, hans barnsligheter och revolt.
Dock tyckte jag om mamman!
Dock tyckte jag om mamman!
December 22, 2020
quite evocative but rushed the last chapter a bit i think
January 29, 2023
Stellar writing just like speckled people
January 12, 2024
It was fun to read about the life of this character, but nothing memorable
Read
November 23, 2019Page 39
My mother had let history out again. It was all over the house and I could feel it in the air, like a special stillness in the rooms. There was no sound except the clocks ticking backwards.
Page 63
I wondered if this was the way life always turned out, that you get caught for the things you didn’t do and you get away with the things you should be guilty for, that guilt and innocence eventually balance themselves out.
Page 75
When it’s calm and there is no wind, the sound carries so far that you can think the whole day is like a room, and you can hear people miles away, just whispering.
Page 94
She said it was not difficult to murder somebody. It was the opposite. It’s hard not to murder somebody.
Page 135
On the way home, the moon was so bright that my father fell and dropped the canteen of milk, because he was born with a limp and couldn’t trust himself walking.
‘The moon knocked me,’ he cried, when he got home.
His mother rubbed his head and said there was no harm done. She cleaned the cut on his knee and said it was no use crying over it. She didn’t want him to think it was the limp that was to blame, so she went to the door and spoke to the moon, pointing up into the night sky. Stop trying to trick people into thinking it’s daytime. My father must have thought it was still his fault that there was no milk for the morning. And now he’s still trying to make up for it and put things right long after they’ve happened and cannot be changed any more. He’s repairing history, my mother says, trying to pick up the moonlight from the street.
My mother had let history out again. It was all over the house and I could feel it in the air, like a special stillness in the rooms. There was no sound except the clocks ticking backwards.
Page 63
I wondered if this was the way life always turned out, that you get caught for the things you didn’t do and you get away with the things you should be guilty for, that guilt and innocence eventually balance themselves out.
Page 75
When it’s calm and there is no wind, the sound carries so far that you can think the whole day is like a room, and you can hear people miles away, just whispering.
Page 94
She said it was not difficult to murder somebody. It was the opposite. It’s hard not to murder somebody.
Page 135
On the way home, the moon was so bright that my father fell and dropped the canteen of milk, because he was born with a limp and couldn’t trust himself walking.
‘The moon knocked me,’ he cried, when he got home.
His mother rubbed his head and said there was no harm done. She cleaned the cut on his knee and said it was no use crying over it. She didn’t want him to think it was the limp that was to blame, so she went to the door and spoke to the moon, pointing up into the night sky. Stop trying to trick people into thinking it’s daytime. My father must have thought it was still his fault that there was no milk for the morning. And now he’s still trying to make up for it and put things right long after they’ve happened and cannot be changed any more. He’s repairing history, my mother says, trying to pick up the moonlight from the street.
August 15, 2008
Very good
Read
August 3, 2011J'ai beaucoup aimé, un peu moins que "Sang impur", dont c'est la suite. Une sacré verve et un humour à tout épreuve. So irish!
July 13, 2012
Sequel to "The Speckled People."
August 29, 2015
I think reading it by myself, I could concentrate and enjoy it more
November 14, 2015
I think reading it by myself, I could concentrate and enjoy it more
Want to read
October 29, 2017Ich habe ein Buch bei BookCrossing.com registriert!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14784611
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14784611
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews