Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 395 - 26 October 2007
Irish Fiction
The Deportees by Roddy Doyle
Trade Paperback; Publishers’ Recommended Price: 20 Euro. Read Ireland Price: 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 240 pages
For the past few years, Roddy Doyle has been writing stories for "Metro Eireann", a newspaper started by, and aimed at, immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories took a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in today's Ireland. The stories range from "Guess Who's Coming to the Dinner", where a father who prides himself on his open-mindedness when his daughters talk about sex, is forced to confront his feelings when one of them brings home a black fella, to a terrifying ghost story, "The Pram", in which a Polish nanny grows impatient with her charge's older sisters and decides - in a phrase she has learnt - to 'scare them shitless'. Most of the stories are very funny - in "'57 per cent Irish" Ray Brady tries to devise a test of Irishness by measuring reactions to Robbie Keane's goal against Germany in the 2002 World Cup, Riverdance and "Danny Boy" - others deeply moving. And best of all, in the title story itself, Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who formed The Commitments, decides it's time to find a new band, and this time no White Irish need apply. Multicultural to a fault, "The Deportees" specialise not in soul music this time, but the songs of Woody Guthrie. (Also Available in Hardback; Publishers’ Recommended Price: 26 Euro. Read Ireland Price: 22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK)
The Third Party by Glenn Patterson
Trade Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 170 pages [Add To Basket]
Breakfast in a hotel, a stroll through town, take in a visitor attraction or two, then it's off to a sales conference, followed by dinner and bed ... what could be more routine in the life of a travelling businessman? But this is no ordinary city. This is Hiroshima. The businessman has a murky past. And who is the mysterious Ike, a fellow traveller from Belfast, who just happens to be in Japan to give a reading from his new book at the university on the edge of town? Played out in a city where frantic consumerism exists alongside the dark eternal shadow of the bomb, "The Third Party" is a knowing and powerful exploration of death, guilt and the legacies of war. This is a mesmerising and dreamlike novel, bristling with taut psychological energy, a surreal journey where old and new, and east and west collide - a journey to the bitter end; an end that has already begun.
Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 354 pages
Twenty-first-century Dublin was chic, seductive, and affluent. At the glittering heart of the city is Anna Kelly Sweeney, a moderately successful writer, who lives in exclusive south Dublin with her wealthy property developer husband Alex and her son Rory. Thus insulated from harsh and unpleasant realities, Anna's life is spent in the endless round of launches, lunches and opening nights that makes up the city's literary scene. But Anna is not happy. Sensing the emptiness of her existence, she falls for the handsome but irresponsible Vincy and prepares to abandon home, husband and son for the dream of an all-conquering love. Anna's life is in crisis, and as events unfold, her sense of herself as both a woman and a writer is shattered. Self-consciously echoing and drawing on Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne's ambitious new novel uses the story of Anna as a critique of Irish society in the twenty-first century. Set largely in Dublin and Kerry, Ni Dhuibhne weaves Anna's story together with that of Leo, Kate, Gerry and a cast of other characters, to create a rich tapestry, a web of stories through which to explore, amongst other things, family and marriage, the materialism of Irish society and culture, the relationship between the urban and the rural, the role of the writer and of writing, and the search for purpose, meaning and spirituality in modern Irish life. Panoramic, strikingly original and compulsively readable, "Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow" is a modern-day morality tale, an intelligent, funny, critical but always fiercely humane insight into contemporary Irish culture and society.
The Christmas Club by Stephen Price
Trade Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 430 pages [Add To Basket]
A story of love, regret and the bittersweet nature of friendships ... It is 1988. Six cynical young urbanites, brought together by a series of strange events, end up stranded at Christmas in a bleak, run-down house on an isolated stretch of Donegal coastline in Ireland. It seems like a recipe for disaster, but as the landscape reveals its wild charms, and the house reveals its strange history, they become bound in friendship, and as a drunken joke form the Christmas Club. Fast-forward to Christmas 2002. As one by one the Christmas Club slowly reconvenes, middle-aged manners and the gloss of new money disguise passions that still run deep - passions that erupt with tragic consequences
A Simple Twist of Fate by Neville Thompson
Paperback; 10 Euro / 15 USD / 7 UK; 266 pages
Frank is a fat kid growing up on the hard streets of Dublin … bullied at school, mollycoddled at home and ignored at work. He decides to leave it all and have a chance at life. Min was born into a happy, if poor, loving family. Then tragically both her parents die and she is forced into working the streets of Thailand to make ends meet. One fateful night, Min and Frank meet on a beach and it is love at first sight. But will others be happy to let them find true happiness? This is a controversial and thought-provoking novel of contemporary Ireland.
Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 278 pages
Where magnificence and squalor co-exist, there will always be envy, rage, cruelty, paranoia and violence. This title is set in St Petersburg, 1914: imposing and shabby, monumental and squalid, and - under its surface of frosty glamour - seething with plots and secret allegiances. On a blustery April day, O.V. Gulko, a respected newspaper editor, is murdered in front of a shocked crowd. Five days later, Dr. Otto Spethmann, famous psychoanalyst, receives a visit from the police. There has been another murder in the city - and somehow he is implicated. He is mystified - and deeply worried, as much for his young, spirited daughter as for himself. He is preoccupied, too, by two new patients: Anna Petrovna, the society beauty plagued with nightmares with whom he is steadily and inappropriately falling in love, and troubled genius Rozental, the brilliant but mentally fragile chess master, due to play the most important competition of his life - the spectacular St. Petersburg chess tournament - but on the verge of a complete breakdown. With the city rife with speculation and alarm, Spethmann broods over his own chessboard, its pieces frozen mid-battle, and contemplates the many forces - political, historical, sexual - that are holding him in their grasp.
The History of Things by Sean Moncrieff
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 222 pages [Add To Basket]
Film director Tomas Dalton returns home to his North Inner City Dublin roots. However, the country he has returned to, with its new-found affluence and glamour is unrecognisable from the one he left behind. But this version of Ireland has yet to reach Bass Avenue, where the mischievous welcome he receives from the local mob of children quickly grows into something far more sinister. Lost amongst the wreckage of a painful divorce, a chaotic film shoot and the manic advances of a fading Hollywood diva, Tomas is forced to protect the faded trophies of his life. By any means necessary.
The Miracle of Grace by Kate Kerrigan
Trade Paperback; Publishers Recommended Price: 20 Euro. Read Ireland Price: 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 276 pages [Add To Basket]
A startling novel of motherhood, love and death from the author of "Recipes for A Perfect Marriage". Grace's mother Eileen is a great list maker, so when Grace walks into Eileen's kitchen to drop off a postal package and sees her garish 'To Do' pad on the counter, she thinks nothing of it, until she sneaks a look. There, at No 8, ranked in importance well below bread, telephone bill and bins is 'Tell G I have ovarian cancer, probably terminal'. Grace goes into shock, primarily at the thought that her mother is dying, but also at the fact that her mother simply couldn't tell her to her face. Is their relationship really so bad? Eileen has been brought up in rural Ireland in the 1950s, in thrall to the rules of her community - church first, then husband, then children. So she's had little time for herself and even now finds it impossible to put her own problems and desires to the fore. It is only when Grace confronts her, that she is able to go back over her past, to her own childhood, her early marriage, and the birth of her cherished only daughter to find memories of happiness and unbearable tragedy that have coloured her life forever. "The Miracle of Grace" is a poignant, but ultimately uplifting, novel that reveals a unique relationship between a mother and her daughter, and tells of a woman whose life has been restricted by the mores of duty, honour, and religion but who yearns for love.
Do You Want What I Want? By Denise Deegan
Trade Paperback; Publishers Recommended Price: 20 Euro. Read Ireland Price: 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 356 pages [Add To Basket]
Funny how a couple's world can change in an instant ...Rory is a devil-may-care young doctor, career on the up, wonderful girlfriend at home, nothing more pressing on his mind than finding tickets for Saturday's match. That's until a near fatal incident at work makes him realize that the one thing that would make him happier than anything - in fact, the only thing that matters to him - is to become a father. Rory's girlfriend, Louise, has a very different view of their future - and, for very good reasons, it doesn't include becoming parents. But how can she tell Rory? And when she does, does it have to mean the end?
All You Need is Love by Mary Malone
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 7 UK; 366 pages [Add To Basket]
Georgina loves working as features reporter with the Weekly News but isn't quite so satisfied in her private life. She feels trapped by her responsibilities to help her widowed father with her younger siblings. Being offered promotion to the news desk is a dream come true and a chance to get out of the rut she's found herself in, particularly when sexy Tim takes her under his wing and promises to teach her all he knows! Her very first task is to investigate the increasing teenage drug problem. Furious when she discovers how prevalent drugs have become in the locality and how much nearer to home they are than she'd ever suspected, she becomes obsessed with breaking the chain of suppliers, despite the risks involved for herself and her family. Georgina's friend and work colleague, Val, has issues of her own to deal with. Her little girl, Jodi, wants a Daddy for Christmas. Though Val laughs it off at the time, an unfortunate accident changes her whole perspective and she has little choice but to go on a 'Daddy' hunt to save her daughter's life. All You Need Is Love is a heart stopping journey for these two young women as they come face to face with the uglier side of life and the trouble it can bring to their homes.
I Never Fancied Him Anyway by Claudia Carroll
Trade Paperback; Publishers Recommended Price: 20 Euro. Read Ireland Price: 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 365 pages [Add To Basket]
Cassandra never set out to be a psychic, least of all a famous one, with her very own magazine column, plus a glamorous TV slot thrown in for good measure.Well, let's face it, it's not exactly a career choice you might make, now is it? But, whether she likes it or not, ever since she was a little girl, Cassandra's been able to see things, so vividly and clearly, it can be, well, a bit frightening. In fact, scrap that, it's terrifying. You see, the thing is ...she's never yet been wrong. Not once, ever. So here's the biggie: while she can make life and relationship predictions with 100 per cent accuracy for everyone around her, including her three best friends, Chantal, Jo and Marc, then why oh why does she get her own love life so disastrously wrong? And then there's the way her astonishing gift just seems to go clean out of the window any time there's a guy in the room that she fancies...
When the Boys Are Away by Sarah Webb
Paperback; 9 Euro / 14 USD / 6 UK; 452 pages [Add To Basket]
When Meg returns to Dublin after three years trailing Simon around the globe with their toddler, Lily, and Dan, her 11 year old son from a previous relationship in tow, she realises that all her friends have moved on. And now she only has her kooky family, her sex-obsessed sister, Hattie, and Dan's flaky but dangerously gorgeous father, Sid, to rely on for help and support. Her new neighbour, Tina is in the same boat. Tina's a work widow - her workaholic husband, Oliver, works in London from Monday to Friday, leaving Tina with only her perma-stressed sister, Gerry, for company during the week. Meg is worried - without Simon's job to define her, she doesn't know who she is anymore. But just when she finds a new job and starts to get back on her feet, Simon throws her another curve ball. And Meg finds that having a man around all the time isn't all it's cracked up to be. And that sometimes living apart is easier than living together. Because when the boys are away ...the girls can play! 'A wonderfully enjoyable read - no wonder Irish eyes are smiling' - "Heat". 'Chicklit at its best ...this is one to savour' - "Irish Independent".
The Pride of Parnell Street: A Play by Sebastian Barry
Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK [Add To Basket]
In two poignant, interweaving monologues, Janet and Joe tell the story of their lives of petty crime in Dublin, the act of violence that shattered their marriage and their long years of suffering before Joe's final redemptive act.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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