A review by pozo67
Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan

challenging dark emotional funny informative slow-paced

4.25

Feel like this book was at the edge of what I can read right now. It's hard to review memoir cos it's real and personal. But the pre-Borstal stuff was hard going! The Borstal side of it was an interesting, funny, informative account of life in Borstal in those days. Behan writes with wit and kindness, taking every man (and usually it is a man) as he finds him. I would say he stretches that a bit far sometimes but that's open to debate about forgiveness. Some of the language is of its time -including some racism and anti-semitism - but other bits, like the Cockney dialect, are a joy to read. The only thing he censors is some stronger swearwords. You get a real sense of being there, day to day. 
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