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Crooked Field
An outcast in his own land, forced to sell his beloved fields to pay for his wife's funeral and the rearing of his young daughter, Conor Kelly is increasingly bitter at the life he has been pushed into. As his daughter, Helen, grows up, her attempts to move out of her father's dark shadow begin to drive them apart.
A doomed relationship with a local boy takes Helen to London and its world of shadows, broken dreams, and lives lived out in exile. Here she meets an Irish Underground worker who brings her deeper into the heart of herself than she could ever have imagined. When she finally returns to face her father, she sparks a battle of wills which begins to turn only as Kelly weakens in the face of age, and Helen discovers a life she can finally call her own.
A doomed relationship with a local boy takes Helen to London and its world of shadows, broken dreams, and lives lived out in exile. Here she meets an Irish Underground worker who brings her deeper into the heart of herself than she could ever have imagined. When she finally returns to face her father, she sparks a battle of wills which begins to turn only as Kelly weakens in the face of age, and Helen discovers a life she can finally call her own.
Hardcover
Published January 1, 2003
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April 24, 2021
It should really be 2.5 stars because it is certainly above 2 but I cannot say that I liked it. The first 100 pages though are riveting. Nothing much happens but the reader is engaged, trying to work out the relationship between the father and daughter: how old the girl is, when and where in Ireland they live and what happened to the mother. This is excellent, this is what made me buy the book in the first place.
What follows though is a let-down. The daughter, Helen, goes to London, works there for a year, then returns to her father but the year in London is never discussed. The back blurb says the novel is "about the search for one's soul" but I found Helen too passive to believe that she would start studying again. She did not read much during the first 200 pages but then suddenly grew fond of poetry - I found this far fetched, maybe had lost interest in the relationship because the father who was mostly silent in the first part became inexplicably garrulous in the final part.
This is the writer's first novel and therefore overloaded with much irrelevant detail. But I don't regret reading it, learnt something new about the Irish.
What follows though is a let-down. The daughter, Helen, goes to London, works there for a year, then returns to her father but the year in London is never discussed. The back blurb says the novel is "about the search for one's soul" but I found Helen too passive to believe that she would start studying again. She did not read much during the first 200 pages but then suddenly grew fond of poetry - I found this far fetched, maybe had lost interest in the relationship because the father who was mostly silent in the first part became inexplicably garrulous in the final part.
This is the writer's first novel and therefore overloaded with much irrelevant detail. But I don't regret reading it, learnt something new about the Irish.
Displaying 1 of 1 review