I felt everything, and worried about everything, as Tom Kettle settled into ‘his sun-faded wicker chair in the dead centre of his living room, feet pointed towards the affecting murmurs of the sea, smoking his cigarillos,’ and then two men knocked on the door and disturbed the hard-won peace.
The story is a slow build, a rondo starting at the edge of a theme and returning again and again, closer and closer to its tragic centre. I know I’ll read it again.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER TWICE WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR
'A masterpiece' Sunday Times 'Stunning' LIZ NUGENT 'Extraordinary' Irish Times
Tom Kettle, a retired policeman, and widower, is settling into the quiet of his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea.
His solitude is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask about a traumatic, decades-old case. A case that Tom never quite came to terms with. And his peace is further disturbed when his new neighbour, a mysterious young mother, asks for his help.
The voice, right from the first paragraph, where Demon describes himself during his own birth in his teenage mother’s trailer as ‘A slick fish-colored hostage picking up grit from the vinyl tile, worming and shoving around because I’m still inside the sack that babies float in, pre-real-life.’ Yowza!
Where Old God’s Time is deep and slow, this one careens along. Maybe some people tune in to the connection between this book and David Copperfield (which was illustrated by my great-great-great grandfather, just saying), but I didn’t feel like taking time for that as I traveled on this book’s rollercoaster of emotion, situation, and action.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
In a way, this felt like an Irish Demon Copperhead, what with its direct, unflinching, surprising, often hilarious descriptions, and its pace.
And like I did reading both my other favorites, I spent my time in love with the protagonist – ‘Ryan was the oldest of the wreck’s children. He tiptoed around his father and made up for it around everyone else’ – rooting for him and the people he loved, booing the people who could hurt him.
WINNER OF THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016
WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOT PRIZE 2016
We all do stupid things when we're kids.
Ryan Cusack's grown up faster than most - being the oldest of six with a dead mum and an alcoholic dad will do that for you.
And nobody says Ryan's stupid. Not even behind his back.
It's the people around him who are the problem. The gangland boss using his dad as a 'cleaner'. The neighbour who says she's trying to help but maybe wants something more than that. The prostitute searching for the man she…
When Su, a divorced mother of one daughter, falls in love with Jeremy, a widowed father of two sons, they want to build a life together, but neither of their houses in Worcester is big enough for a family of five. They decide to build a dream house in farmland outside the city. For sound designer Su, it’s an opportunity to create an embracing home and heal past wounds of betrayal and loss, while failed entrepreneur Jeremy sees a chance to impress his overbearing father.
But what happens when financial misjudgments cloud the horizon? What happens when some family ties grow strong and others don’t grow at all? The Sound of It looks at blending a family, when expectations are high, dreams are big, and the Internet is very dangerous.
