Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 205
New Irish Fiction
At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 11.50 USD / 10.50 UK; Scribner, 643 pages [Add To Basket]
Set in Dublin and its surrounds, this novel follows the year to Easter 1916, the time of Ireland's brave but fractured uprising against British rule. At its core it tells the love of two boys, Jim, a naïve and reticent scholar, the younger son of foolish, aspirant shopkeeper Mr. Mack, and Doyler, the dark rough diamond son of Mr Mack's old army pal. Doyler might once have made a scholar like Jim, might once have had prospects like Jim: but his folks hadn't the beans, they sent him down the country. Now he has returned, schoolboy no more, but hauler of the parish midden cart, with socialism and revolution and wilful blasphemy stuffed under his cocksure cap.
And yet the future is rosy, Jim's father is sure. His elder son is away fighting the Hun for God and the British Army and he has such plans for Jim and their corner shop empire. But Mr Mack cannot see that the landscape is changing, nor dies he realise the depth of Jim's burgeoning friendship with Doyler. Out at the Forth Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, the two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact that Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year hence, Easter 1916, they will jump from the Forty Foot and swim the bay to the distant beacon of the Muglins rock, there to raise the Green and claim that island for their country, and for themselves. As Ireland sets forth towards her uncertain glory there unfolds a love story of the utmost tenderness, carrying the reader through the turbulence of the times like a full-blown sail.
Ten years in the writing, this novel reveals an artist whose mastery is not simply of his craft but of his realm and the people who live and breathe in it. This is the most 'talked-about' novel in Ireland this year. This novel was our selection for Book of the Month in Fiction for September 2001.
Trains and Boats and Planes by Killen McNeill
Paperback; 9.50 Euro / 8.50 USD / 5.90 UK; TownHouse/Pocket Books; 279 pages [Add To Basket]
Love for Harry Moore will be forever links with Marie, the beautiful girl from Alsace. Ever since his magical teenage encounter with her in a tiny holiday resort in Donegal, it has never lived up to his expectations. Thirty years later, Harry, middle-aged, but not quite disillusioned, travels to Strausbourg to take up the search for Marie and the innocence and longings of his youth. This is a haunting and evocative debut grappling with memory, conflict and tragedy and coming of age issues that may, in Harry's case, never be resolved.
Call the Swallow by Fergus O'Connell
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 9.00 USD / 6.50 UK; Collins Press, 380 pages [Add To Basket]
David Steinbaum, a Polish Jew, witnessed the horrifying effects of Hitler's campaign against the Jews in eastern Europe - and yet, 60 years later, he has still not discovered the fate of his sister Ariela, a young jazz singer in pre-war Warsaw. About the Holocaust, this story unravels the fateful events in the lives of David and Ariela. But there are other forces at work as well. Rudolf Fest is a family man, with a future in the Gestapo's Department of Statistics. To Rudolf and his colleagues, the lives of the Jews are nothing more than numbers on a chart. This novel is a searing recreation of an almost unimaginable time in history.
Blue Pool by Tom Nestor
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 9.00 USD / 6.50 UK; Collins Press, 332 pages [Add To Basket]
As Hugh Dawley looks down from his farm on Mount Fierna, he covets the richer pastures of Barton Hall Estate - land that belonged to his ancestors. Obsessed with the idea of wrestling it back, he plans to enlist the aid of his sons. But his wife Elizabeth has other plans. Motivated by a different 'vision', the dreams and aspirations she has for her children go far beyond the mountain. Slowly the family cohesion begins to disintegrate. This novel is a compelling and emotional charged epic of family tensions, jealousy, suicide and love.
Peter and Mary Have a Row by Damien Owens
Paperback; 17.50 Euro / 16.00 USD / 11.50 UK; Flame, 326 pages [Add To Basket]
Peter and Mary have been together since their teens. Happily so, for the most part. But now, suddenly, something seems to have gone wrong. Is it serious? Is it nothing? Do they need help? Maybe - maybe not. Either way, they are going to get it. Because in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, personal problems don't remain personal for long. The troubled couple is soon receiving plenty of attention - and not all of it is welcome.
He's Got To Go by Sheila O'Flanagan
Trade Paperback; 13.99 Euro / 12.50 USD / 11.50 UK; Headline, 406 pages [Add To Basket]
What do you do when the man in your life lets you down? Show him to door? Chuck his clothes out of the window? Cut the crotch from his trousers? If only it was that easy - especially when you've got an eight-year old daughter to think about and a part-time job that barely pays the milk bill. Nessa Riley, who believes that with her husband, her little girl, and the home she loves, has it all, is suddenly faced with the hardest decision of her life. Can she ignore what Adam seems to be up to and hang on to the happiness they've enjoyed for the past ten years? Can they wipe the slate clean and start again? Or, as her sisters appear to think, has he really go to go?
Isobel's Wedding by Sheila O'Flanagan
Paperback; 8.99 Euro / 7.99 USD / 7.50 UK; Poolbeg, 522 pages [Add To Basket]
The wedding dress is a dream: there are four hundred and twenty pearls hand-sewn on the bodice. Her beloved Tim is a dream too - the mere sight of him sets her heart pounding. Everything is perfect. Except the bridegroom has cold feet … Her dream shattered, Isobel turns to Spain, a demanding job, and a series of handsome strangers to invent a new and stronger self. Her growing relationship with the disturbingly attractive Nico is the icing on the cake. Surely nothing could ever make her feel that her true self is the one that she left behind.
Francesca's Party by Patricia Scanlan
Paperback; 8.99 Euro / 7.99 USD / 7.50 UK; Poolbeg, 587 pages [Add To Basket]
After years of being the perfect wife and mother, Francesca Kirwan's life is changed irrevocably one dismal autumn morning when her husband Mark forgets his mobile phone. In the space of ten minutes her comfortable, safe, uneventful existence is completely shattered. With her life turned upside down and an extremely uncertain future ahead of her, she has two choices - sink or swim! She decides to get a life! But that is easier said than done.
Disco Daddy by Morag Prunty
Paperback; 12.60 Euro / 11.50 USD / 10.50 UK; Pan, 393 pages [Add To Basket]
Ex-model Valerie never imagined that her short marriage to 80s pop idol Jack Valentine would herald the end of her love life. Now she's fed up with being propositioned by playboys and longs for a safe, suburban husband who will look after her. Rock star manager Sinead has an appetite for 'scruffy pop totty.' She knows that they are never, on paper, ideal, but will she be able to relinquish her desires and settle for a middle-aged-man-in-a-suit? Magazine editor Karin is the author of 'Ireland Most Eligible Bachelor' list so, in theory, she should get first dibs at the pickings. Trouble is, she knows they are lean and include a flicky-haired Australian TV presenter and a businessman with a penchant for golf-wear and creative combovers. When all three women are challenged to find a man to marry before they all turn forty in the summer, they realize the time has come to hang up their handbags and cut to the chase …
The Rainbow Singer by Simon Kerr
Paperback; 12.60 Euro / 11.50 USD / 10.50 UK; Phoenix, 233 pages [Add To Basket]
It is July 1985. Twenty teenagers are sent to the home of 'Happy Days' Milwaukee, USA, as part of the month-long peace initiative Project Ulster. The Project goes wrong from the start because one of the kids is not simply the 14-year-old Heavy Metal fan he appears to be. Wil Carson lives a secret life as a Loyalist terrorist, and peace is the last thing on his mind … that is until he meet Teresa, a bewitching Catholic girl who makes him believe that the American Dream, where everyone can life together, might be possible. But when Teresa breaks his heart, everything turns into a nightmare.
The Fall of Light by Niall Williams
Paperback; 9.99 Euro . 9.50 USD / 8.99 UK; Picador, 382 pages [Add To Basket]
This story begins in the famine-stricken Ireland of the early nineteenth century. The Foley family have lost their home. And they have also lost Emer, wife of Francis and mother to the four boys - Tomas, Finbar, Finan and Teige, a solemn twelve-year-old with the gifts of a horse whisperer. And so they set off across Ireland in search of a new start. Then disaster strikes, and they are scattered across the country and overseas, through Europe, Africa and America. A romantic epic bursting with life, this novel movingly describes one family's struggle to be reunited, and to survive in a century of hardship and change.
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