If the hero of this book is neurodivergent, Chris and guest Dr Frances Devlin-Glass agree that our author wants to avoid such diagnostic terms. They examine Feeney's novel as a bildungsroman - a story of development - about Jamie's first year at high school. Struggling socially, Jamie is marginalised. Community is the remedy: Chris and Frances discuss meitheal, an Irish word for a group that forms to assist in labour, as in the project of building a boat which teachers devise to help Jamie. Yet children are subject to conflicting influences: Feeney shows the online world both as a means to pursue niche learning and as a portal to the manosphere, and that even well-intentioned teachers can be swayed from one commitment by another. Chris and Frances explore How to Build a Boat to be a book with a project: to make us rethink attitudes to cognitive experiences like Jamie's.

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The Irish Books Podcast is supported by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Monash University. Produced by East Coast Studio.