{"product_id":"9781617750205","title":"The Brothers' Lot","description":"\u003cb\u003eA “mordantly funny” novel set in a Dublin educational institution known as the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Combining the spirit of Kingsley Amis's \u003ci\u003eLucky Jim\u003c\/i\u003e with a bawdy evisceration of hypocrisy in old-school Catholic education, \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers' Lot\u003c\/i\u003e is a comic satire that tells the story of the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means, a dilapidated Dickensian institution run by an assemblage of eccentric, insane, and often nasty celibate Brothers. The school is in decline and the Brothers hunger for a miracle to move their founder, the Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly, along the path to Sainthood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When a possible miracle presents itself, the Brothers fervently seize on it with the help of the ethically pliant Diocesan Investigator, himself hungry for a miracle to boost his career. But the school simultaneously comes under threat from strange outside forces. The harder the Brothers try to defend the school, the worse things seem to get. It takes an outsider, Finbar Sullivan, a young student newly arrived at the school, to see that the source of the threat may in fact lie inside the school itself. As the miracle unravels, the Brothers’ efforts to preserve it unleash a disastrous chain of events.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tackling a serious subject through satire, \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers' Lot\u003c\/i\u003e explores the culture that allowed abuses within church-run institutions in Ireland to go unchecked for decades.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Potently conveys the anarchic spirit of schoolboy warfare.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A memorable, skillfully wrought, and evocative satire of an Ireland that has collapsed under the weight of its contradictions.”—Joseph O’Connor\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Witty, brilliant, devastating.”—\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Akashic Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47158186410224,"sku":"9781617750205","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781617750205","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}