The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe (Suntup Editions)

Suntup Editions has announced a new edition of The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe, designed by Michael Russem and illustrated by David Lupton. The book is described as “a powerful and unrelenting journey into a young boy’s heart of darkness” featuring a protagonist the New York Times called “part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield, part Hannibal Lecter.”

Suntup’s description includes this note on the typography:

The text face for The Butcher Boy is Study, recently designed by Jesse Ragan and based on the 1968 hand-drawn alphabets of Rudolph Ruzicka, a Czech-American illustrator, typeface designer, and book designer. The face is both typographic and calligraphic, with many distinctive characters and quirks. To call it child-like would be dismissive. Let’s call it human. It’s that humanness that suggested it as the text face for The Butcher Boy as the main character (although at times savage) is always human.

The wild display face is FF Folk, designed by Maurizio Osti and Jane Patterson in 1995, and based on the Ben Shahn Folk Alphabet of 1940. It’s unpredictable and untamable with a manic energy that’s a perfect match for the protagonist of The Butcher Boy.

The book is available for advance purchase from Suntup Editions and is expected to be published in summer 2022.