The novel, chronicling Paddy's internal journey towards maturity, is a bildungsroman, as it centres upon the main character's development. Paddy's growing up is painfully bitter. While the beginning of the book is filled with playful antics, the growing antagonism between his parents and the breaking up of their marriage are evident as the novel moves on. Paddy does not choose his "journey of enlightenment and maturity"; rather, he is robbed of it when his parents become estranged from one another.
The novel is not divided into chapters, but into numerous vignettes that do not follow any chronological order. Despite the absence of a clear-cut plot (introduction, complication, climax, dénouement) the reader is still able to sense the passage of time both in Paddy's own life and in the changes that come to Barrytown.
Doyle's language employs a register that gives the reader the vivid impression of listening to a ten-year-old Irish boy from the 1960s.
