Read Ireland Book Review
'Best' Novels of 2004
Ulysses: A New Reader’s Edition by James Joyce, edited by Danis Rose
Trade Paperback; 30.00 Euro / 36.00 USD / 24.00 UK; 768 pages
Even before its first publication in 1922, Ulysses dominated the literary landscape. It has generated diverse and animated responses from readers and critics alike, eliciting superlatives both positive and negative. Encompassing everything human – urination, defecation, masturbation, crepitation, menstruation, fornication, insemination, paturition and expiration – it entered the world as at once the most obscene and the most brilliant of novels wherein Joyce strove to answer the question that bedeviled him: Is life worth living? To this end Joyce immersed himself in the Dublin of 1904, in a ludic procession of minor characters, and in his cast of principal players – the artist (Stephen Dedalus), the man in the street (Leopold Bloom) and the woman who said yes (Molly Bloom) – fashioning a sustained, unparalleled tour-de-force of writerly genius.
The Master by Colm Toibin
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 32.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 360 pages [Add To Basket]
In this brilliant and profoundly moving novel, the author tells the story of Henry James, an American-born genius of the modern novel who became a connoisseur of exile, living among artists and aristocrats in Paris, Rome, Venice and London. In January 1895 James anticipates the opening of his first play in London. He has never been so vulnerable, nor felt so deeply unsuited to the public gaze. When the production fails, he returns, chastened, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost.
The author captures the exquisite anguish of a man whose artistic gifts made his career a triumph but whose private life was haunted by loneliness and longing, and whose sexual identity remained unresolved. Henry James circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, he was lauded and admired, yet his attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love.
The Master is Colm Toibin's most accomplished and powerful novel to date. It is a portrait of a man who was elusive to both friends and family even as he remained astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art - a searching exploration of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart.
Havoc, in its Third Year by Ronan Bennett
Trade Paperback; 17.50 Euro / 21.50 USD / 12.50 UK; 244 pages
England in the 1630s – an unsettled country in turbulent times. People are gripped by fear: fear of crime, or foreign invasion, of Catholic conspiracies, of the vagrant poor. In a town in northern England, a group of Puritan reformers tightens its hold on the lives of its inhabitants.
John Brigge is the local coroner, a respected man who wants nothing more than to work his farm and be with his wife, now expecting their first child. But when he is called to investigate an infanticide, Brigge finds himself drawn unwillingly into a vicious power struggle. Katherine Shay, a fiery Irishwomen, stands accused of killing her baby. The Puritan faction demands her immediate execution. Brigge suspects their haste has little to do with justice. What are they hiding? Does he really want to know? Against a background of looming crisis, Brigge struggles between his desire to protect his family and the need to see justice done. And he is haunted by the mystery of Katherine Shay.
Powerful, dramatic and utterly gripping, this is a superb novel, justly long-listed for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Its canvas is large, its characters full-blooded, its atmosphere apocalyptic. Like the best historical novels, it vividly captures the period yet resonates with the present. (Also available in Hardback at 27 Euro)
The Swing of Things by Sean O'Reilly
Trade Paperback with Flaps; 16.50 Euro / 20.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 302 pages [Add To Basket]
Noel Boyle needs a new life and he has come to Dublin to find it. He dreams of transformation and renewal. But as he struggles to overcome his loneliness and to keep despair at bay his attempts at change seem futile and almost comic. One thing offers the possibility of salvation: a woman. Boyle starts a relationship with Eleanor, who is beguiling yet remote, playful yet serious in her suggestion that he return to England with her. Can he take the chance or will it be the excessive street-poet Fada who, by tempting hum back into the violence of his past, will determine his future? All the while the face of a young woman pulled from the Liffey haunts his mind and awakens an ancient rage in his gut … Ablaze with stories of lives lived and lost, this novel is a darkly beautiful meditation on the idea of escape and what it is that keeps us tethered to the world.
Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 470 pages
One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller, the last of a fabled breed, arrives unannounced and mysterious at a house in the Irish countryside. By the winter fireside he begins to tell the story of this extraordinary land: Ireland. One of his listeners, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling then, when the old man leaves, he devotes his life to finding him again.
It is a search that uncovers both passions and mysteries, in his own life as well as the Storyteller’s, and their solving becomes the thrilling climax of this tale. But the life of this boy is more than just his story: it is also the telling of a people, the narrative of a nation, the history of Ireland in all its drama, intrigue and heroism.
The novel travels through the centuries by way of story after story, from the savage grip of the Ice Age to the green and troubled land of tourist brochures and news headlines. Along the way, the reader meets foolish kings and innocent monks, god-heroes and great works of art, shrewd Norman raiders and strong tribal leaders, poets, politicians and lovers. Each illuminates the magic of Ireland and the eternal connections of its people to the land.
A novel of huge ambition, beautifully told, the book is the unstoppably readable story of a remarkable nation.
Shade by Neil Jordan Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 317 pages
Large Paperback; 40.00 Euro / 50.00 USD / 30.00 UK; 366 pages, with photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Nina Hardy has been murdered. She died in the house where she grew up, killed by George, her childhood friend. But her body is never found, and she remains, a silent shade, watching the events of her own afterlife. She watches her half-brother Gregory as he arrives to bury her, after some thirty years away; and Janie as she attempts to elicit a confession from George, her brother. Through them Nina will relive their lives together, and somehow begin to make sense of the people they all became.
This is a story of imaginary friends and hayrides, of plays and school dances, of a seemingly idyllic childhood by the mudflats of the River Boyne. But the outside world cannot be kept at bay, and the fragile balance of their friendship is soon interrupted. Ultimately they will be torn apart by the outbreak of war, brought together again only to find that each other has changed almost beyond recognition.
This novel is at once an unforgettable portrait of childhood, a powerful story in its many forms, and a moving tragedy of lost innocence. Written with astonishing insight and perception, it confirms Neil Jordan as one of the most mesmerizing voices in contemporary Irish fiction.
Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 400 pages [Add To Basket]
From the no. 1 best-selling author of PS, I Love You comes an enchanting novel about two childhood friends whom fate and destiny can't help toying with...From naughty children to rebellious teenagers, Rosie and Alex have stuck by each other through thick and thin. But just as they're discovering the joys of teenage nights on the town and dating disasters, they're separated. Alex's family moves from Dublin to America - and Alex goes with them, for good. Rosie's lost without him. But on the eve of her departure to join Alex in Boston, Rosie gets news that will change her life forever - and keep her at home in Ireland. Their magical connection sees them through the ups and downs of each other's lives but neither of them knows whether their friendship can really survive the years and miles - as well as new relationships. And at the back of Rosie's mind is whether they were meant to be more than just good friends all along. Misunderstandings, circumstances and sheer bad luck have kept them out of each other's arms, but when presented with the ultimate opportunity, will they gamble everything - including their friendship - for true love? Destiny, Alex and Rosie discover, is a funny thing and fate isn't quite done with them yet...
Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
Four strangers, with nothing in common but a need to escape, meet in a Greek taverna high about the small village of Aghia Anna. From Ireland, American, Germany and England, they have each left their homes and their old lives, when a shocking tragedy throws them unexpectedly together.
Fiona is a young nurse, trying to make her family understand her need to follow her own path. Thomas desperately misses his young son and fears that his ex-wife will come between them. Elsa abruptly left her career as a television presenter, but someone from her past refuses to let her go. And shy, quiet David is determined to make a stand against his overbearing father. With these four is Andreas, the taverna owner, who badly misses the son who left home nine years ago and has never returned.
This novel is the story of one summer and four people, each with a life in turmoil. With the help of Vonnie, a middle-aged Irishwoman who lives in the village and is now a near-native, they find solutions – though not necessarily the ones they anticipated.
Ireland’s Maeve Binchy is one of the world’s most successful and best-loved authors. Read all over the world and translated into 30 languages, worldwide sales of her books now exceed a staggering 40 million copies.
Dispatching Baudelaire by Ken Bruen
Trade Paperback; 8.00 Euro / 10.00 USD / 5.00 UK; 160 pages [Add To Basket]
Throughout his life accountant Mike Shaw has played it safe, kept his head down, and avoided risk. His girlfriend, Brenda, is a secretary and their idea of a night on the town is to visit the local pizza parlour. But when Mike meets Laura in a bar off The Strand, their lives are irrevocably changed. Small, smart, sexy -and utterly dangerous - Laura instantly spellbinds Mike and leads him into a world of moral depravity, dominated by the sinister presence of her powerful and rich father, Harold Benton. Dressed in safari suits, dining in West End restaurants, Benton drinks only the best of wines and whiskies, imitates Richard Burton, and quotes French poet Baudelaire at every opportunity. He is also without conscience, on a hell-bent mission to mould others to his likeness.
This book is about what can happen to the blandest of men when seduced by money, power and sex. As the reader follows Mike on his journey into the heart of darkness, he comes to discover that there are few more dangerous animals than an Englishman off balance. Set against the paranoia of the early 1990s post-Thatcher London, this is yet another addictive page-turner from the prolific Irish author.
A Bit on the Side by William Trevor
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 17.00 UK; 244 pages [Add To Basket]
‘Then, for the forty minutes that were theirs, they spoke of love: as it had been for them, as it still was, of its confinements, necessarily so, its intensity too, its pain, the mockery it had so often felt like, how they had never wasted it by sitting in silence in the dark of a cinema or sleeping through the handful of nights they’d spent together in her flat. They had not wasted it is lovers’ quarrels, or lovers’ argument. The did not waste it now, in what they said … ‘
This is the author’s first collection of short stories since the award-winning ‘The Hill Bachelors’ was published in 2000. Tender, touching and beautifully humane, the dozen new stories contained here explore the subject of adultery, and tell of secret passions, domestic infidelities, office romances, and the broken and unbroken rules of love.
Fillums by Hugh Leonard
Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 232 pages [Add To Basket]
The year is 1942, and Drane is the most boring town in Ireland. There is no public transport, and someone is scrambling the wireless signals; Mrs. Miniver is banned by the censor; and there are no half-crown hops at the locked-up town hall. The only diversions are the shows put on by the local amateurs, the Standing Ovations, and the old films at the Picture House. But if life is full, last evening’s ‘fillum’ is always worth re-lovings, as ‘Perry’ Perry and his wife Babs, recently arrived from Dublin, soon discover. Beautifully written, infused with warmth, with and its author’s infectious love of the movies, this is the new novel from the master of Irish letters.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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