The Butcher Boy
by Patrick McCabeliterary work· published 1992
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Francie Brady, the "pig boy," is growing up in a poor small Irish town in the early sixties, fueled on an adolescent's comic books, Flash Bars, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He is determined to win the Francie Brady Not A Bad Bastard Anymore Diploma. But how do you do that when your mother is sent to the madhouse, your father is an alcoholic, and everyone turns their back on you? Not only was The Butcher Boy nominated for, and the winner of, major literary prizes, but McCabe's theatrical adaptation of the novel, Frank Pig Says Hello, was staged in Dublin with tremendous success, and a production is now planned for London's Royal Court theater.
Adaptations (2)
The Butcher Boy has been adapted into 2 films, from 1917 to 1997.
The Butcher Boy1917 · film · 30 min · dir. Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle · IMDb ↗IMDb6.3Customers and clerks frolic in a general store. Roscoe walks out of the freezer wearing a fur coat, then does some clever cleaver tossing. In Buster's film debut he buys a pail of molasses.
The Butcher Boy1997 · film · 110 min · dir. Neil Jordan · IMDb ↗IMDb7.179%Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.
