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