Brian O'Dowd

A tour de force. If you read only one Irish novel this year, this is the one to choose. It is a stunning, new voice in Irish literature. The core of the book is a love story told with both tenderness and acerbic wit. The central character is a Dubliner who has lived in Canada for many years. His return to Ireland reminds him of the many reasons why he left. The novel is not, however, another bitter critique of Irish society. Instead, it presents Ireland and, in particular, Dublin and Wicklow, in a comic and affectionate fashion. There is a magic realism at play in the accounts of the main character’s experiences as he visits old loves and familiar haunts in Dublin city. There is also a Joycean echo in the emigrant's detailed knowledge of the city that he left in the 1970s. The language of the novel is initially challenging but you will quickly get into the rhythm of the prose and begin to laugh and, occasionally, cry at the word play and the wonderful one liners. I rarely re-read novels but this is one which I think would definitely repay a second and a third read as it operates at so many different levels. It is a novel based in Ireland and Dubliners, in particular, will relish the references to familiar places and the very amusing descriptions of the habitat of the locals. But this is also a universal novel as it explores the dilemma of the emigrant and a man aware of his own faults in pursuit of a contented love life.

Frank