One overcast Friday morning in 1973, a barrel containing a baby boy washes up on the shore of an Irish fishing town.

The new arrival quickly causes a stir among the residents of Killybegs (hometown of author Garrett Carr): "Any fresh baby represented possibility but here was one with no parents, no history, a child who was entirely future."

Carr's first novel for adults, "The Boy From the Sea," shows how that future pans out for both the foundling and the family he becomes a part of. Fisherman Ambrose Bonnar, a man who "lived for the raw encounter with the ocean," brings the child home to his wife Christine, and the pair adopt him and name him Brendan.

Not everyone is happy with this arrangement. The couple's toddler Declan immediately senses a rival for his parents' affections and greets the new child in the house with the word "Why?" Phyllis, Christine's sister, offers a more articulate but just as blunt response: "What kind of madness is this?"

The seasons turn, life goes on, and the Bonnars weather several storms. Ambrose has to go trawling in increasingly dangerous waters to make ends meet and put food on the table but, when his livelihood becomes too precarious, he is forced to look for work further afield and out of his comfort zone.

On the home front, sibling tensions intensify. Phyllis resents Christine for choosing to bring up someone else's child while, up the lane, she singlehandedly cares for their aging father, a man who has declared he is "finished with living." Declan refuses to share a bedroom and a birthday with Brendan and regards him not as a brother but an interloper.

The Boy From the Sea

As the 1970s give way to the 80s, problems mount and divisions seem unbridgeable, particularly when Declan develops a criminal streak and Brendan embarks on solitary walks, or "hunts," and bestows "blessings" on credulous locals. Eventually, after a few close calls, tragedy strikes. Rather than rupturing the family further, it has the potential to bring them closer together, albeit at a colossal emotional cost.

Carr's beautiful and beguiling debut offers many delights. The characters live and breathe on the page. Masterful depictions of hardscrabble existences on land and perilous escapades at sea are offset with moments of wry humor: A crowd gathers at a grocer's window to view Killybegs' first-ever pineapple ("Nobody dared buy it"); Christine watches an angry David Banner transform into the Incredible Hulk on TV and disapprovingly remarks, "Terrible waste of a good shirt."

The book's use of first-person plural narration ("We weren't the sorts to judge people") could have had a distancing effect. Instead, this communal voice proves effective as it draws us in to share the townsfolk's hopes and concerns — not to mention their fascination with Brendan. He casts a spell over a small community; he is at the center of a novel that will bewitch many readers.

Malcolm Forbes, who also has written for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Boy From the Sea

By: Garrett Carr.

Publisher: Knopf, 336 pages.