Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 479
5/6 June 2010
Irish Fiction
The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle
Large Format Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 11 UK; 330 pages
At the end of "Oh, Play That Thing", the second volume of Roddy Doyle's trilogy about Henry Smart, Henry, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawls into the Utah desert to die - only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. Ford recognizes a fellow Irish rebel and determines to turn Henry's story - a boy volunteer at the GPO in 1916, a hitman for Michael Collins, a republican legend - into a film. He appoints him 'IRA consultant' on his new film, The Quiet Man. "The Dead Republic" opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, 'Pappy', who in a series of intense, highly charged meetings has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust. Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker, nicknamed 'Hoppy Henry' by the boys on account of his wooden leg. When he is caught in a bomb blast, that wooden leg gets left behind. He finds himself a hero: the old IRA veteran who's lost his leg to a UVF bomb. Wheeled out by the Provos, Henry is to find he will have other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...In three brilliant novels, "A Star Called Henry", "Oh, Play That Thing" and "The Dead Republic", Roddy Doyle has told the whole history of Ireland in the twentieth century. And in the person of his hero, he has created one of the great characters of modern fiction.
Hand in the Fire by Hugo Hamilton
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 10 UK; 278 pages [Add To Basket]
You have a funny way of doing things here. The voice is that of Vid Cosic, a Serbian immigrant whose immediate friendship with a young Dublin lawyer, Kevin Concannon, is overshadowed by a violent incident in which a man is left for dead in the street one night. The legal fallout forces them into an ever closer, uncertain partnership, drawing Vid right into the Concannon family, working for them as a carpenter on a major renovation project and becoming more and more involved in their troubled family story. While he claims to have lost his own memory in a serious accident back home in Serbia, he cannot help investigating the emerging details of a young woman from Connemara who was denounced by the church and whose pregnant body was washed up on the Aran Islands many years ago. Was it murder or suicide? And what dark impact does this event in the past still have on the Concannon family now? As the deadly echo of hatred and violence begins to circle closer around them, Vid finds this spectacular Irish friendship coming under increasing threat with fatal consequences. Drawing on his own speckled, Irish-German background, Hugo Hamilton has given us a highly compelling and original view of contemporary Ireland, the nature of welcome and the uneasy trespassing into a new country.
Other Comments: 'Hugo Hamilton is a major international writer who just happens to have grown up in Ireland. His great subject is innocence. In its strength and grace, his work glows.' Anne Enright Praise for The Speckled People: / 'This is the most gripping book I've read in ages. And it's beautifully written: what could have been safe memories are made new-lived and real in this fascinating, disturbing and often very funny memoir." Roddy Doyle / 'The Speckled People is poetic in its language and construction, lyrical in so many of its descriptions. There is a story full of several different kinds of passion with a real tragedy at its heart. The pain is all there, but so is its antidote.' Margaret Forster / 'Donner und Blitzen! What the Jaysus! A memoir of warmth and wisdom. And at last a good -- if flawed -- Irish father. A beautiful German mother. And not too much rain. It is tender and profound and, best of all, tells the truth. I loved it.' Patrick McCabe / 'A fine and timely book from an exquisitely gifted writer, this is beautiful, subtle, unflashy, perfectly realised and quite extraordinarily powerful.' Joseph O'Connor
Midnight in a Perfect Life by Michael Collins
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 19 USD / 11 UK; 262 pages
Karl is a troubled writer standing on the precipice of forty. After a degree of success in his early career he is now battling with what he terms his 'opus', his legacy to the world. But his partner Lori, the main breadwinner, is also thinking about her destiny and wants a child. As they embark on fertility treatment, Karl is forced to confront his deepest fear - that he will turn out to be like his father, a travelling salesman who was found dead after apparently committing murder when Karl was just thirteen. Unbeknown to Lori, Karl has already taken loans out against their house to pay for his mother's care home, and his freelance work, ghosting for a crime writer called Perry Fennimore, has dried up. As the treatment progresses, Karl feels increasingly distanced from his relationship and the safety of home, and attracted to the shadowlands of Chicago's backstreets. When Fennimore re-emerges with a proposal, Karl begins to tap this new source of creativity - but just how far will he go in his pursuit of the ultimate story?
Brendan by Morgan Llwelyn
Hardback; 22 Euro / 35 USD / 16 UK; 304 pages [Add To Basket]
This is the story of Saint Brendan the Navigator, whose legendary quest to find the Isle of the Blessed is one of the most remarkable and enduring of early Christian tales. Among Irish saints, Brendan the Navigator is second only to Patrick. Founder of several Christian monasteries, he most famously guided a group of monks on a dangerous journey into the unknown vastness of the ocean on a search for Paradise. Based on the medieval “Life of St. Brendan,” Morgan Llywelyn’s imaginative retelling of the Christian legend of this most remarkable man is a lyrical and surprising feast for the mind and heart. It is a story of truth and transcendence, of inner strength and daily discipline, of love and longing, and of towering faith; and of course, miracles.
Before the House Burns by Mary O’Donoghue
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 10 UK; 212 pages [Add To Basket]
Set on Ireland's Atlantic coast, "Before the House Burns" is a tender, implosive first novel by an award-winning short story writer and poet. It concerns the lives of its three young narrators, children of a bereaved father and witnesses to a shared grief. This nuanced and heart-breaking account of one family's struggle - for work, shelter and happiness - enters the imagination through this braided, pitch-perfect tale of a family whose lives fracture around two tragic events. It is a story of what happens when self-sustenance turns to isolation, a story about the hard scrabble to find a home. Despite their sufferings, this is not yet another tale of an unhappy Irish childhood. What makes this novel unique is not only the calibre of the writing, but also its depiction of the love that binds the family together as they suffer blow after blow to their lives.
Plum Rains and other Stories by John Givens
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 27 USD / 17 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
It's Japan. The last decade of the 17th century. Men who lived by the sword find themselves without a vocation while women begin to confront new opportunities and threats hitherto unimaginable. The austere demands of the haikai poet are no match for the new popularity of urban performers, and the medieval samurai ethos has been replaced by that of the merchant and the shogun's bureaucrats. This colourful but remote world is portrayed in these stories. Japan's greatest poet Basho features in several of them. We also meet young 'peony girls' who yearn for a life outside the pleasure quarters; a rogue samurai who seeks solace in wine, in the supposed serenity of haikai poetry, in the rigours of Zen Buddhism, and finally in his own acceptance of the impossibility of regaining the past. Another, more murderous samurai evolves into what modern yakuza gangsters see as their historical essence. A mysterious 'daughter of the palace' struggles with an unbearable remorse; a senior government official seeks to preserve Basho's poetic legacy; a teenage sociopath tries to carve out his own career by cutting a bloody swathe across the landscape; and, a bizarrely preternatural pariah supervisor brings his own understanding of things with surprising and sometimes horrifying results. "The Plum Rains and Other Stories" brings to life a uniquely beautiful and violent world.
Ghosts & Lightning by Trevor Byrne
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 7 UK; 320 pages [Add To Basket]
Happy or unhappy, all families are a mystery. And none more than the Cullens. Denny is just beginning to make a life for himself away from them when a call from his sister brings him back to Dublin, city of his birth. Back to square one. As if squabbling siblings and reprobate childhood friends were not trouble enough, a ghost starts making appearances in the family home, and Denny's life is about to get a lot more complicated. Full of riotous laughter, wonderment and love found in the most unlikely places, Ghosts and Lightning is a revealing chronicle of our times.
The Clever One by Helena Close
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 11 UK; 320 pages [Add To Basket]
Gifted teenager Maeve Hogan is an outsider in her own family. She is the clever one: studious, hard-working and destined for good things. When her sister has a baby with Big, an abusive small-time criminal, she fears the worst for the child’s upbringing. While Maeve’s mother is content to go along with the charade of happy families, her brother Cian seems too busy trying to figure out his sexual orientation to care. Frustrated, Maeve decides to take drastic action alone to remedy the situation. But sometimes people can be too clever for their own good. Her plan goes badly array, with disastrous consequences. In the aftermath, Maeve struggles to come to terms with the fallout – and the guilt. The Clever One is a bravely written novel that explores the boundaries of love and loyalty, and the lengths we are prepared to go to in protecting them.
Blood Money by Arlene Hunt
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; [Add To Basket]
Death and violence are all Pavel Sunic has ever known. Only one person matters to him, his sister Ana. When she pays the ultimate price to secure his release from a Bosnian prison, he vows to avenge her death. The bloody path he creates leads to Dublin. Quick Investigations is suffering. With his partner Sarah Kenny still missing, John Quigley struggles to keep the business afloat. When Rose Butler approaches him to investigate the death of her daughter Alison, John takes the case even though the evidence points to suicide. Yet why did the promising doctor and mother of two choose to die alone in a shabby hotel room? What was her relationship with Ivan Colbert, a disgraced surgeon? And just how dangerous is the dead woman's husband? Torn between his case and his personal life, John is stretched beyond capacity. And the arrival of Pavel Sunic threatens to bring the whole pack of cards crashing down. Blood Money: first do no harm, second, run for cover.
Revenge of Lady Much by Anne Dunlop
Paperback; 8 Euro / 11 USD / 6 UK; 352 pages [Add To Basket]
Escape to the country with this fabulously funny tale of Lords, Ladies and lessons in love...Can you find a prince without kissing a few frogs? Sensible schoolteacher Sarah Gordon used to think so. But now she's so over her ex-fiancé, childhood sweetheart Ian, she wishes she'd never been under him. Besides, she's too busy for love. Until tasty toff, Good Evening Ireland presenter Rupert Glass shows up at the Farmers' Club barbecue and all of a sudden Sarah's struggling to keep her cool. And when her sister's wedding to a local farmer unexpectedly throws them together again, it looks like romance could really blossom. But Sarah's about to discover it takes more than a four-leaf clover to be lucky in love...
The Heater by John Conlee
Large Format Paperback; 12 Euro / 15 USD / 9 UK; 306 pages [Add To Basket]
THE HEATER is a baseball novel but it is also much more. It is, in fact, a re-enactment of an ancient Celtic tale, one involving family, friendship, loyalty, and betrayal. The novel takes readers through one entire baseball season's exciting pennant race and then on to a tension-filled conclusion on a wind- and rain-swept island off the west coast of Ireland.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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