Boy Wonders

A Memoir

By: Cathal Kelly

Narrated by: Cathal Kelly

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

"The most fascinating things about life are the banalities we so rarely discuss amongst ourselves but that we devote most of our energies to navigating. How did that day you've forgotten look? What did it feel like? Were you lonely? Did you have the sense you were progressing anywhere? Probably not. Yet string a few thousand of them together and that’s a life." - From Boy Wonders

Cathal Kelly grew up in the '70s and '80s, decades when dressing like Michael Jackson seemed like a good idea and The Beachcombers - "an adventure show about logging" - seemed to make sense. But apart from fashion missteps and baffling TV plot lines, Kelly's youth was a time of wonder, obsession, and discovery. Navigating an often fraught family life, Kelly sought refuge in books, music, movies, games, and at least one backyard hole. However, looking back he sees that his passion for George Orwell, Star Wars, or The Smiths was never just about the book, movie, or band. Rather, it was about the promise each new experience offered him in making sense of the world, and how he might find a home within it.

By turns funny, elegiac, and insightful, Boy Wonders is an unvarnished celebration of growing up and stumbling toward identity. It's about the good and the bad of those brief years when we find purpose without end, obsession without limit, and joy in the strangest of places.

©2018 Cathal Kelly (P)2018 Doubleday Canada

Critic reviews

"Cathal Kelly's reporting (for this newspaper) about sports is so entertaining that even if (like this reader) you don't much care about sports, you may regularly read him anyway. His debut memoir, Boy Wonders, about growing up in the 1970s and 80s, promises to be emotional, funny and packed full with nerdy obsessions and ill-advised fashion choices. Also sports." (The Globe and Mail)

"The best writers keep a steely grip on their childhood memories and Cathal Kelly is no exception.... He is one of Canada's finest sports writers (first at the Star, now at The Globe). He is also a natural storyteller with a deep streak of self-deprecating humour." (Toronto Star)

"The quirky, must-read Globe and Mail columnist introduces us to both the boy and the wonder of a memoir that truly is a gem - multi-faceted, colourful, polished, brilliant.... Boy Wonders is terrific, a book you should buy, read once for the pleasure, read again for the craft and then... give it to a 12-year-old." (Winnipeg Free Press)