The Confessions of Nipper Mooney

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

In this engaging first novel, Ed Kavanagh portrays with authentic voice
the life of a young boy growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in Kildura, a
fictional farming community near St. John’s, Newfoundland. Raised
mainly by his mother Sharon (his father often away working in the mines
of Cape Breton) but also by his entire Catholic community, Nipper learns
to endure and survive the hardships that come his way. The early death
of his father, the often cruel discipline meted out by the nuns and
Christian brothers, his school teachers, and the bullying of schoolmates
are all made tolerable by Nipper’s escape into different worlds: the
wild world that surrounds his community and the world of literature.

Brendan Flynn, part farmer, part mystic, part self-taught naturalist;
kindhearted, outspoken Aunt Mona; gentle Sister Bernadette and cruel
Brother Crane; and playmate Brigid are but a few of the interesting
characters in Nipper’s real world. In literature, from the Catholic
saints and martyrs (especially St. Brigid, the patron of his first
school) to Zane Grey, Nipper finds relief from the severity of real
life, but these forays into different worlds also cause him, as he comes
of age, to question the tenets and practices that rule his Catholic
upbringing. Written with clarity, humor, and insight, Kavanagh’s
portrait of a boy and the life, landscape, and language of the
“southern shore” is a joy to read.