By Frank O’Shea
LONG ISLAND. By Colm Tóibín. Picador 2024. 292 pp. $34.99
Because this is a follow-up to Tóibín’s Brooklyn, it would be a help to revisit that story, however briefly. The central character was Eilis Lacey from Enniscorthy in Co Wexford. With the help of a friendly priest, she emigrated to America where she met and secretly married an Italian man named Tony. She returned briefly to Ireland where she met a local named Jim Farrell; they fell in love, but she returned to America to her husband, without letting anyone know that she was married. That book is set in the mid-century, the Fifties, say.
This book takes us forward more than 20 years. We learn that Eilis is in a good marriage, with two older teenage children; we meet her husband Tony and his family and everything is going well until a man comes to her door to tell her that his wife is pregnant to Tony and it is his intention to leave the baby at her front door after it is born. Eilis won’t allow it, though her in-laws plan to take care of the child.
At this stage, Eilis goes on a visit to Ireland for her mother’s eightieth birthday and her two children will join her after a few weeks. At this stage, the action switches to Ireland for the remainder of the story. Though we are never told this, it is now the seventies, so we are not yet in the world of mobile phones or internet.
We meet a new character named Nancy who used to be Eilis’s friend before she emigrated. Her husband has died and she is starting a relationship with Jim Farrell, Eilis’s friend from earlier. Both in their fifties, they have planned to go to Rome to get married, but do not let anyone in the town know this, because Nancy’s daughter is getting married and they do not want to spoil that occasion for her.
Eilis comes into this setting and the author slowly develops the relationship between her and Jim, whom she walked out on more than 20 years earlier. What follows is in some ways foreseeable, though the ending is quite unpredictable and Tóibín is a master of developing the story slowly, almost undramatically. The reader is drawn into the lives of the characters and feels sympathy for Jim, central character in the Brooklyn romance and still having to deal with two strong women.
It is tempting to give more information on the story, but the truth is that once a reader starts, he/she will be drawn into the action and want to see how the master manages all his characters. And the truth is that here you are reading the work of a master, one of the main writers of the past almost half-century. We recommend that you get it when it comes out in the middle of the year.
THREE LITTLE BIRDS. By Sam Blake. Corvus Books 2024. 467 pp. €11.77
This is a murder mystery, though murders are not committed for some pages. The central characters are members of the Irish GardaÍ, one a country detective sergeant and the other a worker in FACE, Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement in the Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park.
Most of the action is set some three or four hours west of Dublin, in the fictional town of Kilkeel. A human skull is found in a lake near the town and sent to FACE where it is worked on by Dr Carla Steele, an expert on reconstruction. She is visited briefly by Detective Jack Maguire, a man who is happy to get away from the hard work in Limerick to the small town of Kilkeel. These two are the main characters in the book, their relationship not progressing to romance at any stage.
Carla and her friend Grace visit Kilkeel for the long weekend where they meet the large number of new cast members in the story. The reader too needs to be alert, especially because many of these are female with vaguely similar names and with boyfriends or husbands that we need to learn about. There are two killings during that long weekend and Carla’s work in preparing a copy of the original skull is vital.
The first thing to remark about the book is the number of pages, unusually large for a traditional whodunit. The author brings the reader along slowly and that person will find themselves reading the long accounts of personal relationships between the characters. The conclusion is not entirely clear, but it is noteworthy that after the case is solved, Jack Maguire is transferred to Dublin, where we assume new stories will be set.
A worthwhile read, if a little longwinded.
WILD HOUSES. By Colin Barrett. Jonathan Cape 2024. 259 pp. €14.59
Colin Barrett may be a new name for many of our readers. He grew up in Mayo and has set this story in that part of Ireland. The action revolves around a number of families involved in the drug trade in the area of Ballina. The central seller is a man named Cillian English who owes a great deal of money to someone else up the chain. His younger brother Donal, known as Doll, is captured by two hired toughs.
The story deals with how that situation is managed. The Gardai are barely involved, even when a pub is robbed and the takings passed on as part of Cillian’s debt. We meet Doll’s girlfriend Nicky and his mother and two enforcers with the unlikely names of Stretch and Gabe. The large number of characters take some time to get used to.
The characters in the book are living in the margins of rural Irish society, quite possibly the kind of people most people try to avoid. We learn a great deal about the background and childhood of many of these characters, sometime in a way that slows the advance of the story. The way it is set out is unusual, reading like a series of short stories, that have only marginal effect on the main storyline.
The book comes with some enthusiastic endorsements from writers like Sally Rooney, Kevin Barry, Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle, people who know what they are talking about. The word ‘funny’ appears more than once in what they say, but it is not easy to see any amusement in either the writing or the action. A first-time book by a writer with many awards for short stories, this reviewer would be interested to know whether others have similar five-out-of-ten opinions.
Tinteán 