Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.86 (Sept 2002)

Gregory Collins
Gabriel Fitzmaurice
John Galvin
Peter Haining
Marian Keyes
Wayne King Livingstone
Michael McLaverty
Ciaran O’Driscoll
Siobhan Parkinson
Thomas Dillon Redshaw
Patricia Scanlan

Francesca’s Party by Patricia Scanlan
- In her latest novel Patricia Scanlan has produced yet another eminently readable tale of love lost and found, set against the familiar backdrop of Dublin. In chronicling the progress of Francesca from the day she discovers her husband’s infidelity to the final state of total independence, she has accurately mirrored the various stages through which a wronged wife must pass. Francesca’s utter devastation at Mark’s behaviour, the anger, hurt, vindictiveness and pain she suffers as she tries to come to terms with the radical change in her life, all have a ring of truth. Also credible is the support she receives from her family and friends who know when to be there and when to leave her alone. Perhaps Patricia Scanlan’s greatest achievement in this book, however, is her portrayal of the ebbing and flowing emotional fortunes of Francesca and the other woman in Mark’s life, the super-efficient career woman Nikki Langan. The way in which she has brought Francesca from a physical and spiritual low to a position in which for the first time she has power to control her life is beautifully balanced against the gradual decline of Nikki to a state not unlike that experienced by Francesca in the early chapters. And in the middle is Mark, the complacent, selfish and ultimately weak man who reads his former wife’s abilities so badly and tries to do the impossible in going back to where they had once been. His relationship with his sons, badly affected by his marriage break-up, gradually improve while that with his own father, always a bit testy, is actually strengthened by his adversity. All of the characters who have helped or hindered Francesca on her way to being an independent career woman with her own home come together at the party of the title. This, which begins as the entertainment triumph she had planned, deteriorates into physical violence and shock revelations which act as a catharsis in the lives of all the main players in this convincing story.

[ top ]

A Runner Among Falling Leaves by Ciaran O’Driscoll
- Ciaran as a small boy, Ciaran as an adolescent and Ciaran in middle age are the characters in this book which follows the adult Ciaran’s journey back to try to undo the harm done to him by his father. Growing up in Ireland in the 1950s, Ciaran O’Driscoll inhabited a world in which it was deemed inadvisable to praise children. In Ciaran’s case this was exacerbated by the fact that his father was also his schoolteacher, so that he was belittled both in school and at home. In exploring the way in which his father rejected him, the author describes the two facets of his own persona, the shadow who lived the life of the withdrawn child who couldn’t accept the way in which his life was unravelling, and the ghost who from time to time asserted himself and made a difference to the young boy’s existence. In attempting to come to terms with the two utterances of his father that did the most damage, Ciaran O’Driscoll has enlisted the help of therapists with mixed results, and it is in these encounters that the innate humour which probably spared him from further anguish manifests itself. The first insisted on putting his own interpretation on the problem while the second, though more sympathetic, is characterised by therapist clich=E9s such as “I hear what you’re saying, Ciaran”. His world is one of disorder, over which he has no control. He convincingly describes the bewilderment of a child who never knows when an action of his will result in mild amusement or in a severe beating from his father or Barbara, the woman who looks after the family. He craves order and control and observes it in his grandmother’s nightly games of patience and in the way in which Martin, the farmhand, eats his midday meal when “his food was a territory over which he had total control”. The adult Ciaran is attempting to avoid making the character of his father the central theme of the book but it is inevitable that such a complex man, “a person to whom the expression of fatherly affection was a foreign language”, should come to dominate the narrative as he dominated his son’s life. The author moves easily between himself as a child and as an adult, and this is predominantly a saga of opportunities missed. The young boy’s joy when his father laughs at one of his jokes is a beacon in a sea of misery, a misery from which the adult Ciaran has not been able to escape. His final thought addressed to his father is particularly poignant, “I would have done anything for your love”.

[ top ]

Collected Short Stories by Michael McLaverty
- As with the reissue of Mary Lavin’s short stories, featured on this page some weeks ago, this collection will be welcomed both by those familiar with the work of the Northern writer and those who will come to his work with fresh eyes. He writes of the places he knew, Rathlin Island, Belfast and County Down, examining what Seamus Heaney in his introduction calls “the worn grain of unspectacular experience”. The detail of his descriptive pieces brings to vivid life the sights, sounds and smells of a particular place at a particular time. Perhaps this is most notable in “Evening in Winter” in which six-year-old Charlie takes note of every detail of his outing to church with his father, the “black ribbons in the snow” made by wheeltracks, the smell of the incense and the noise of the thurible, “like nails in a tin”. Permanence is a preoccupation of McLaverty, the wish to leave something behind him expressed by the old bachelor Jamesy Heaney in “Stone”, the yearning for continuity felt by Tom in “Uprooted” and by Paddy in “The White Mare”. Indeed, these three characters underline the accompanying theme of old age and feebleness. Each in his own way is fighting against the loss of youth and strength, and each has eventually to come to a degree of acceptance. McLaverty seems particularly comfortable describing the world of the child in language that reveals an intimate knowledge of the subject matter, be it playing with boats, looking for birds’ nests, or trying to understand the ways of adults. His adult characters also resonate in our own world, some tragic and others comic. The priest’s housekeeper who “declines” the sacking she receives, the alcoholic aunt and the miserly schoolmaster are contrasted with the misunderstandings between the two married couples in “After Forty Years” and “Six Weeks on and Two Ashore”. The author’s love of locality and powers of observation are expressed through prose that is poetic in quality in a memorable collection enhanced by the wood engravings of Barbara Childs.

[ top ]

Angels by Marian Keyes
- The Prologue to Ms Keyes’ latest book sets both the tone and the geographical location: “We will shortly be landing at Los Angeles International Airport. Please ensure your seat is in the upright position, that you weigh less than a hundred pounds and that you have excellent teeth”. And the author has lost none of her touch when it comes to both character and dialogue, describing the often bizarre world of California through the eyes of Maggie Walsh. What precipitates Maggie into the LA world of beautiful and thin people, of constant sunshine and nail parlours, is the break-up of her nine-year marriage to Garv, a man not too popular with her all-invasive family. We follow Maggie as she steps out of her “never giving any trouble” character, fleeing husband and family to stay with her friend Emily in LA. The cast of characters with whom she now mixes, from the hippies next door to Teflon Man Troy and the lesbian Lara, all in their own way help Maggie to reach a point from which she can pick up the pieces of her life. The author then brings together Maggie’s two lives by transporting her entire family over to California where her mother, a touch unpredictably and perhaps unbelievably, reveals herself to be a liberal ready to embrace and be appreciated by the hippy culture. While much of the narrative is consciously humorous, there is always an underlying thread of sadness and Ms Keyes has adroitly manipulated the plot to take the reader unawares with its later revelations. What has happened in Maggie’s past, and has such an influence on her present situation and on her possible future, is kept under wraps until well into the action when the reader has been introduced to all the characters involved. Thus what might have been merely a pleasant romp through some of the excesses of life in California takes on a more serious, and therefore more realistic, hue, and results in a book which is more than just entertaining.

[ top ]

The Mercury Man by John Galvin
- In John Galvin’s second novel he stays with the world he knows best, the world of the garda=ED and their various methods of investigation. In “The Mercury Man” the pursuit of a serial killer is complicated by the knowledge, revealed early in the narrative, that a member of the force is involved in some way. The series of killings, of people who could be regarded as not having paid the full price for their transgressions, brings to the forefront the garda double act of Andy Fox and Bob McGrath. Not known for the orthodoxy of their approach to their work, they call on all their resources in pursuit of the man dubbed The Mercury Man from his “Messenger of the gods” signature. As in all good detective stories, crime does not pay and the criminals reap their just reward, but not before we have been entertained by a cast of characters which includes the ambitious but hopeless Beano and Tom Farrell, the journalist desperate to make a name for himself. There is enough action to keep the reader on his or her toes and though the outcome is somewhat predictable this is nevertheless a good light read.

[ top ]

Great Irish Drinking Stories ed. Peter Haining
- Although this collection has an unfortunate title in the present climate of concern about the nation’s attitude to alcohol, the list of authors makes it an attractive proposition for the lover of the Irish short story. Brendan Behan, perhaps the literary Irishman with the greatest reputation for drinking, has a curious tale of a wake which leads to the fulfilment of a man’s ambitions, while Patrick Kavanagh’s “Peter McCabe’s Bargain” tells an ironic tale of trickery and ultimate tragedy. Also included is James Joyce’s “Grace” from “Dubliners” and a scene from J.M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World”. Authors range from the eighteenth century figure of William Carleton to modern Irish writers such as Roddy Doyle and Marian Keyes, while there is also a contribution from the editor.

[ top ]

The Glenstal Book Of Icons by Gregory Collins OSB
- Following the success of “The Glenstal Book of Prayer”, which became a bestseller last year, Fr Gregory Collins OSB has compiled a series of insights and meditations on the icons contained in the abbey’s Icon Chapel. Fr Collins first leads us to an understanding of the Eastern Christianity and the significance of the icon, before giving instruction on how best to use them in prayer. The icons, each of which is beautifully reproduced in this volume, depict scenes from the life of Christ, a number dedicated to Our Lady, and a litany of saints including St Nicholas and St Dmitri of Rostov.

[ top ]

A Sojourn With Ireland by Wayne King Livingstone
- This collection of anecdotes about an American’s experiences of living in West Cork is the result of a comparatively new phenomenon, the web-based company which will publish and promote a book in hard copy and in electronic form. What the system seems to lack, however, is an efficient editing process and this is a pity as the content and tone of Wayne King Livingston’s book are equally engaging. He has an eye for detail and a facility for delineating character that bring to life the community in which he and his wife find themselves. He ranges from the comic to the tragic in recording the life around him but what could have been a gem is marred by idiosyncratic syntax, a number of sometimes hilarious malapropisms and an overload of exclamation marks. This rendered the first few chapters a struggle to read but perseverance and the ability to ignore the irritations did bring some reward.

[ top ]

New Hibernia Review ed. Thomas Dillon Redshaw
- The Summer 2002 edition of the quarterly review features articles on the depiction of the “lace curtain” Irish on the American stage by William H.A. Williams, an examination of the work of Northern author Bernard McLaverty by Stephen Wait, and Thomas Herron on the influence on Edmund Spenser’s “Faery Queen” of the Armada shipwrecks and the contemporary political situation in Ireland. Poetry is represented by a new selection from Denis O’Driscoll and there are, as usual, a number of book reviews included. This edition has on its cover a remarkable picture of a table decoration made in Belleek and featuring a deer’s head with the antlers supporting three china candle holders.

[ top ]

I And The Village by Gabriel Fitzmaurice
- In this latest collection from the Kerry poet, he once again captures the people and places of his native county in a series of penetrating observations conveyed through his poems. Many have a tone of nostalgia, “The Voice” is a hymn of praise to Micheal O’Hehir, “the voice that brought us visions on the air”, while both the title poem and “The Corner Boy” look back to the village of his childhood. Family and friends, religion and music and the problems that beset us all command his attention. “Father Tommy’s leaving” has a particular resonance today as “A heart that once was burning turns to frost” records the priest’s loss of belief. Fitzmaurice has also included a number of translations from the Irish, notably two of Cathal =D3 Searchaigh’s, “Amhran” and the wonderfully alliterative “Is Fad=E1 Lio=m O=EDche Fh=EDrfhliuch” by Aog=E1n =D3 Rathaille.

[ top ]

The Love Bean by Siobhan Parkinson
- Two stories concerning twin sisters run parallel in this book for young teenagers which manages to encompass romance and history, racism and jealousy by switching back and forth between 21st century Dublin and 1st century Ireland. Into the Dublin lives of Lydia and Julia a stranger arrives who fascinates them both, just as in a book within a book Sun’va and Eva are taken with the young soldier who arrives on the north east coast as part of a Roman expedition. Both story-lines feature confusion between the identical twins, the giving of flowers, the disruptive influence of alcohol, a fight and an attempt to understand and accept foreigners to our shores. The parallel lines finally falter in the outcome of the stories, though each ending is true to the reality of the time in which it is set. This is an interesting concept which has been successfully negotiated by this award-winning author.

[ top ]