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Night Boat to Tangier

Kevin Barry

3.67 · Rating details · 12,524 ratings · 1,677 reviews

It’s late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder – can it be put together again?

Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, above all, wi ...more

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Kindle Edition, 225 pages

Published June 20th 2019 by Canongate Books

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

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Jun 02, 2019 Paromjit rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, netgalley

Delighted to see this on the Booker Longlist!

Kevin Barry is one of my favourite Irish writers and I approached this, his latest novel with a sense of great anticipation and delight. His prose is sublime and lyrical, with his adept shifts in tone, his use of the vernacular, his inclusions of the fantastical, the bad luck of fairy mounds, spells and curses, and the mystics conversing with the dead. It has shades of Waiting for Godot, Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond, are old before their time, a
Delighted to see this on the Booker Longlist!

Kevin Barry is one of my favourite Irish writers and I approached this, his latest novel with a sense of great anticipation and delight. His prose is sublime and lyrical, with his adept shifts in tone, his use of the vernacular, his inclusions of the fantastical, the bad luck of fairy mounds, spells and curses, and the mystics conversing with the dead. It has shades of Waiting for Godot, Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond, are old before their time, ageing has been Irish gangsters, searching for Maurice's daughter, the pretty, pale green eyed, dreadlocked, 23 year old, Dilly, whom they have not seen for 3 years at the Spanish ferry port of Algeciras. They used to be drug smugglers, tainted with the life of danger and fear that the drugs business guarantees, but the market fell through the floor, now its all about slavery and the misery of human trafficking.

The two still exude an air of menace, glimmers of piratical smiles and an edgy jauntiness, despite Charlie's limp and Maurice's damaged eye or perhaps because of this. They have information that Dilly will either be arriving or leaving on the night boat to Tangier, so they hand out flyers, interrogating the 'crusties' as they converse about a past that has led to their presence here at the ferry port. Their fractured cacophony of memories, often morbid and maudlin, take in Cork, Barcelona, Malaga, London and Cadiz, and the love of Maurice's life, Cynthia, Dilly's mother. Their fracturing lives encompass betrayal, the night at the Judas Iscariot club, the plethora of misfortune, lust and other women, paranoia, the fights and fury of drug fuelled lives, the violence, familial mental health issues going back to ancient times, of what it is to be an Irish man and a impoverished future that lies in tatters around them. And within the struggle to bear the weight of their past traumas and toxicity lies the answer as to why Dilly left.

This is a read to be savoured, for its language, for its depth, for the stellar and memorable characterisation, my only complaint is that the novel finished far too soon. It touches on profound issues of what it is to live, identity, love that leaves indelible permanent scars, masculinity, the price of criminality and violence, loss, grief, residing in a landscape of madness, and being a father. A riveting and absorbing novel that I know I will be reading again. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC. ...more

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Jun 10, 2019 Peter rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, literary-fiction, netgalley, around-the-world

Anguish
Night Boat to Tangier is a powerful and expressive novel with fascinating characters that have corrupted and harmed themselves and those around them for years. Kevin Barry's unflinching poetic style nails the moments that linger in the mind well after the book is closed.

Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond are two ageing, disfigured, Irish gangsters, waiting in a lifeless ferry terminal in Algeciras. They are waiting for Maurice’s daughter, Dilly, whom he hasn’t seen in 3 years. She will r Anguish
Night Boat to Tangier is a powerful and expressive novel with fascinating characters that have corrupted and harmed themselves and those around them for years. Kevin Barry's unflinching poetic style nails the moments that linger in the mind well after the book is closed.

Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond are two ageing, disfigured, Irish gangsters, waiting in a lifeless ferry terminal in Algeciras. They are waiting for Maurice’s daughter, Dilly, whom he hasn’t seen in 3 years. She will reportedly leave or arrive on a boat from Tangier within the next 24 hours. “Now the hours melt one into the other at the port of Algeciras. For the fading Irish gangsters, the long wait continues.” Life is a series of memories and as they wait for Dilly they reflect on their past, and flashbacks take us to their lives fuelled with sex, drugs, crime, alcohol, sex and drugs.

“They were hammering into the Powers, the John Jameson, it was breakfast from the bottle and elevenses off the mirror. The child would as well be raised by the cats that sat lazily in what April sun troubled itself to come across the rooftops of Berehaven.”

As drug dealers they made money, as poor investors and a wasteful life, they lost money. Haunting, Irish, Bad Luck, mythical forces have been disturbed as Maurice tried to excavate a fairy mound during a building project. Not a bit of wonder his life has gone to shite. He lost the only woman he ever loved, Cynthia – Dilly’s mother, and his memories of her, torture his waking and sleeping moments. He knew he was bad for Cynthia but he also truly loved her too much to completely let go. As we get to know their demons and failings and the reason Dilly left, do Maurice and Charlie deserve our empathy or forgiveness, as our judgement gets blurred seeing the softer side of violent men?

Kevin Barry is such an exceptional author, with writing to be relished for its striking eloquence and absorbing depth. The harsh dialogue and caustic history of Maurice and Charlie are so stunningly portrayed that you gasp and shudder. His books are shorter than average but contain meaning that would take books 3 times the length to achieve.

I would highly recommend this book and I’d like to thank Canongate and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy in return for an honest review. ...more

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Sep 20, 2020 Richard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: current-lit-uk

Two weeks away from goodreads (exploring lovely Snowdonia, North Wales) and my reviews are beginning to stack up! - so, here goes ............

When we first meet Maurice and Charlie, a couple faded Irish crooks, they are not at their best.
A couple of baggy, fifty something years olds, hats at jaunty angles they sit folded, uncomfortably onto hard, shiny seats - gritty eyed and weary under the hard fizzing lights of Algeciras ferry terminal.
It’s sometime in the unforgiving early hours.
Usually they ...more

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Nov 20, 2020 Vit Babenco rated it liked it · review of another edition

In Spain, at the port of Algeciras, in the ferry terminal, two moth-eaten villains are waiting…
This is the place:

The ferry terminal has a haunted air, a sinister feeling. It reeks of tired bodies, and dread.
There are scraps of frayed posters – the missing.

This is the first knave:

Maurice Hearne’s jaunty, crooked smile will appear with frequency. His left eye is smeared and dead, the other oddly bewitched, as though with an excess of life, for balance. He wears a shabby suit, an open-necked black

...more

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Jul 25, 2019 Marchpane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-releases

Night Boat to Tangier is not a caper or a ‘crime’ novel, but a character-driven story that just happens to be set in a gangster milieu. Along the way there is tragedy, comedy and the peculiar durability of friendships formed in youth.

Irish crooks Maurice and Charlie, lifelong partners in drug smuggling, are hanging about the ferry terminal at Algeciras hoping to locate an estranged daughter. As they wait for long hours, the story unfolds of these two colourful, wizened-beyond-their-years gan Night Boat to Tangier is not a caper or a ‘crime’ novel, but a character-driven story that just happens to be set in a gangster milieu. Along the way there is tragedy, comedy and the peculiar durability of friendships formed in youth.

Irish crooks Maurice and Charlie, lifelong partners in drug smuggling, are hanging about the ferry terminal at Algeciras hoping to locate an estranged daughter. As they wait for long hours, the story unfolds of these two colourful, wizened-beyond-their-years gangsters over decades of shared criminal exploits, love and loss. It’s Maurice’s tale really, with Charlie playing a key, but secondary, part.

Barry takes some creative approaches here – in particular, one tense confrontation between Maurice and Charlie in a shebeen is related entirely from the POV of onlookers and eavesdroppers. We only get snippets of Maurice and Charlie’s conversation in what is essentially a dumbshow, and there’s palpable menace in the air. Placing the reader at a distance for such a climactic moment shouldn’t work but it does, brilliantly. It’s taut, suspenseful, cut-the-tension-with-a-knife stuff that culminates in a chilling act of violence. This single chapter is so good it would make for a 5-star short story in its own right.

Page by page, Barry’s writing skips with Irish vim and vigour; he’s equally adroit at the comedic and the poignant. The dialogue is snappy, banter between characters delightfully dry, the descriptive prose lyrical and melancholy.

The novel abounds with canny encapsulated images, like these:

‘The city ran a swarm of fast anchovy faces.’

‘their smiles are high and piratical; their jauntiness has a cutlass edge’

‘Charlie got up out of the bed, paced the room like a single human shriek made flesh and bone’

‘her sighs opened pockets of woe in the cold, bright air’

If I have a criticism it is only that I would have liked more of Charlie’s back story, and Cynthia (Maurice’s wife) is barely sketched too, despite her being at the centre of everything. Quibbles aside, Night Boat to Tangier was a thoroughly enjoyable read, with the added bonus of discovering a terrific new-to-me author. 4 stars. ...more

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Jul 31, 2019 Meike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-booker, ireland, 2019-read

Nominated for the Booker Prize 2019
This book is like a twisted psychological thriller directed by Quentin Tarantin, starring two aging Irish gangsters. It's also a ghost story. A story about Ireland and the search for freedom, if not deliverance. A story about mental illness. A story about drug addiction and dysfunctional families. Ooooh, Kevin Barry, this is a very, very clever book that constantly jumps and shifts, held together by the distinct voices of two men on the edge of mental breakdow Nominated for the Booker Prize 2019
This book is like a twisted psychological thriller directed by Quentin Tarantin, starring two aging Irish gangsters. It's also a ghost story. A story about Ireland and the search for freedom, if not deliverance. A story about mental illness. A story about drug addiction and dysfunctional families. Ooooh, Kevin Barry, this is a very, very clever book that constantly jumps and shifts, held together by the distinct voices of two men on the edge of mental breakdown.

Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond have been longtime partners in the business of drug smuggling - they made a fortune, but also paid the price: Both struggled with addiction, and Maurice lost his family. Now over 50, they are trying to find Maurice's 23-year-old estranged daughter (mmmhhh....), Dilly. Sitting in the ferry terminal in the Spanish port of Algeciras, they are hoping to catch her on a passage to or from Tangier - or aren't they?

The story is full of edgy dialogue and starts out with a fun, neo-noirish, hard-boiled feel, but soon, mainly due to harrowing and moving flashbacks, develops into an intense psychological tale about two lives that have spiralled out of control. Much like The Man Who Saw Everything, another wonderful Booker contender, Barry contemplates the nature of memory ("The past is uncertain, mobile. It shifts and rearranges back there.") and what our experiences and decisions can turn us into ("He was more than possessed by his crimes and excesses - he was the gaunt accumulation of them.").

I just loved how Barry's story takes unexpected turns and keeps readers on their toes. He also pulls off the whole "ghost" theme (which I will not spoil): "There comes a time when you just have to live among your ghosts" - this novel illustrates this in various ways. A great addition to the Booker longlist, and I want this to be Tarantino's next movie.

And hey, Radiohead experts: If you have thoughts on the reference to Thom Yorke's paralysed eye, please tell me in the comment section! ...more

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Aug 24, 2019 Paige rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural, literary-fiction

The format and style for this book was overly confusing. The style reads like a play, but the format is just spacing without any indicators. For example, you frequently must figure out when a character is speaking. It was a lot of work.

The language also created a challenge. While many words were not found on my Kindle, some sentences didn’t even make sense to me. I am not sure if this is due to a cultural difference, but as a Westerner I was lost and confused about the context often.
The story w ...more

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Sep 24, 2019 Kathleen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Booker Prize Longlist 2019. Kevin Barry’s narration with his mesmerizing Irish accent is enchanting. Aging Irish ‘wise guys’ Charlie Redmond and Maurice Hearne are not! They are lying in wait at the Algeciras ferry terminal in southern Spain for the appearance of Dilly, Maurice’s 23-year-old estranged daughter. They have been hunting for her on-and-off for three years and have it on good authority that she will be traveling through the terminal this evening on her way to-or-from Tangier.

Charlie ...more

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Aug 01, 2019 Hugh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2019, modern-lit, booker-longlist

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019

There is an alchemy about this book, which makes such poetry out of the lives of a pair of brutal unscrupulous drug dealing gangsters and eventually left me feeling sympathy for them.

In the first chapter we meet Maurice and Charlie, two Irishmen in their early fifties, who are waiting in the port at Algeciras where they have been told that Maurice's daughter Dill will be catching a ferry to Tangier. They have not heard from her for several years, and the way ...more

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Jul 01, 2019 Gumble's Yard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-booker-longlist, 2019

Now longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker Prize and re-read accordingly.

This brilliant review in the Dublin Review of Books expresses my views much better than I can

http://www.drb.ie/essays/waiting-for-...

The author’s two previous novels each won a major prize (the Dublin Literary Award and the Goldsmith Prize) and the author, just after the Booker longlisting of this book, had a short story short listed for the prestigious Sunday Times Short Story Prize.

This book started as a screenplay – commis ...more

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Aug 03, 2019 Jerrie (redwritinghood) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was a great, quick read. Shades of “Waiting for Godot”, two aging drug dealers wait at a Spanish port for a boat from Tangier that may be transporting a daughter of one of the men. She has been wandering since the death of her mother. In beautiful, evocative prose, Barry relates how the lives and fraught friendship of the two men lead them to this place. After a life of crime, violence, and mental illness, can they be redeemed by the one thing that still ties them together? I loved the writ ...more

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May 12, 2019 Peter Boyle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: irish, best-reads-2019

"He adored Cynthia the first time he saw her. When she turned the twist of a smile on him, he felt like he'd stepped off the earth."

Two Irish gangsters, well past their prime, wait for a ferry in the sleepy Spanish port of Algeciras. Maurice Hearne, the one with the missing eye, is hoping to find his daughter Dilly, whom he hasn't seen in over three years. The limping Charlie Redmond, his old pal and business associate, hands out flyers of the missing girl and pesters the poor attendant at the I "He adored Cynthia the first time he saw her. When she turned the twist of a smile on him, he felt like he'd stepped off the earth."

Two Irish gangsters, well past their prime, wait for a ferry in the sleepy Spanish port of Algeciras. Maurice Hearne, the one with the missing eye, is hoping to find his daughter Dilly, whom he hasn't seen in over three years. The limping Charlie Redmond, his old pal and business associate, hands out flyers of the missing girl and pesters the poor attendant at the Información desk. The pair have seen better days but they still exude an air of menace. They reminisce about their glory days and mourn for lost love. We also learn how they got their injuries.

The story starts off as a kind of black comedy, the two men cracking jokes and telling stories about their early years, the dialogue singing in their bouncing Cork brogue. The tone often shifts however, into something dark and tragic. Flashbacks explain how they came to make their fortune, a drug-dealing venture providing more profit than they knew how to spend. The relentless danger and pressure took a toll on Maurice: "He was more than possessed by his crimes and excesses - he was the gaunt accumulation of them." He felt his mind begin to unravel and believed that this illness was in his blood:

"He was from a line of madmen centuries deep. Who have all these years crawled beneath the skin of the night and trembled there. Who were found waking in the corners of wet Irish fields. Who were found crawling the rocks and in the seacaves. Found on hospital wards, and in bars, and in the depths of the woods."

Truthfully, Night Boat to Tangier is a love story. Cynthia, Dilly's mother, is the sun, moon and stars for Maurice, always has been. We deduce that she's not in the picture right now and read on to discover why. There were happy times, often drug-fuelled, and plenty of heartbreak, but they produced a beautiful daughter. Cynthia still fills his every waking thought, whether he likes it or not: "He will never lose the feeling of the love that they had together, or the nausea of its absence. Hate is not the answer to love; death is its answer." Eventually we get to hear from Cynthia herself, and we find out what the relationship meant to her:

"The sleeplessness and pain of the long absences, the hot lurches of emotion, the sudden reversals of fortune, the endless pleadings, the slow relentings, the golden times of morphiate heaven, the atrocities on both sides, the shock tactics, and the giddy joy of their lavish sexual reunions"

It's a story of lasting friendship and doomed romance. It's a tale of terrifying madness and reckless humour. Violence always seems to be on cusp of breaking out, but the tension is undercut with surprising tenderness and an unshakeable melancholy. It is written with the agility and conviction of a master storyteller. Night Boat to Tangier is another wild, lyrical dream from the unique imagination of Kevin Barry. ...more

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Aug 24, 2019 Trudie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-19

Kevin Barry is a new author for me and so I did not know what to expect going into this book. For some reason a had the idea of an exotic crime-caper but this is a rather charming character study of two ageing criminals. As with all novels that are lyrical in style, some parts failed to hold my interest, however whenever this novel dips towards boring it has the good graces to be beautifully boring.

I like to think if the Booker panel were to award a prize for "best chapter" ( hard to do becaus ...more

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Oct 02, 2019 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed, returned

BARGAIN I recommend: [Night Boat to Tangier] is $1.99 on Kindle today!

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

Sunsets are biblical, nighttime flowers are dull amethysts, quiet rubies...a tiny, sultana-faced man in lilac slacks and a blazer beneath a pompadour appears to no affect...London's bones limned against weak and apologetic light...this is a beautiful read.

The story is horrible, two men...Maurice and Charlie...whose love of their loucheness and their criminality and their addictions, their love for each BARGAIN I recommend: [Night Boat to Tangier] is $1.99 on Kindle today!

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

Sunsets are biblical, nighttime flowers are dull amethysts, quiet rubies...a tiny, sultana-faced man in lilac slacks and a blazer beneath a pompadour appears to no affect...London's bones limned against weak and apologetic light...this is a beautiful read.

The story is horrible, two men...Maurice and Charlie...whose love of their loucheness and their criminality and their addictions, their love for each other that excludes all the women they adore so helplessly and whose lives they casually, violently ruin, seek their daughter.

No. They aren't gay. The woman they both adored for a time had a baby and, well, who knows whose she really is.

Their awfulness is, in their fiftysomething selves, incredible and unforgivable. Their time in the Bughouse... smoky-grey brick Victoriana carrying the misery of three centuries...detoxing from heroin addiction is not enough to make the difference in their shared past. Their shared room, twin beds, no hint of physical intimacy they're Irish fagawdsake. No one in this book touches except for fucking or killing. People die, have died rather; these men haven't but they know they will. Soonish.

But they are themselves to the end. Does one wonder that Dilly, the desperately sought daughter, left and doesn't wish to be found? One does not. But neither does one feel their hunger to see her again, their desperate desire to connect to Life, is out of character. The way they seek to accomplish that connection is both toxic and perfect. They only know each other in this world. They came to do this desperate thing together. They'll leave together, they'll make whatever there is to be made of breathing after life is over.

I will be a bit let down if this book does not win the 2019 Booker in twelve days. No, strike that, I'll be jawdroppingly stunned and not a little pissed off. Beautiful, poetic, smooth phrases telling hideous, deforming agonies in stertorously breathed oxygen-poor oceans of wreckage aren't common and neither should they be. A diet of these stories would put me in the Bughouse to breathe the smoky-grey brickdust of bygone agonies.

But when they appear these highly luminescent scimitars, curved to the reader's psychic throat, should get the fearful praise and nervous acknowledgment that Charlie and Maurice have always commanded. ...more

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Oct 14, 2019 Zoeytron added it · review of another edition

Shelves: life-is-too-short-dnf, public-library

Although I loved Kevin Barry's novel City of Bohane, it was impossible for me to find my sea legs with this latest tale. At 100 pages in, I have regretfully chosen not to finish it. I'm just reading words at this point, and that's not fair to anyone. Looking at so many 5-star reviews already posted, it feels like I really missed the boat. ...more

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Oct 08, 2019 Truman32 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I know I should like Kevin Berry’s novel Night Boat to Tangiers more than I do. After all, this book has been getting great reviews and it was longlisted for the Booker prize this year. Chip and Joanna Gaines were even overheard remarking that they loved this novel more than “open concept kitchens, rustic furniture made from rusty farm equipment, and shiplap.” !!!!! So even though I feel this novel rates only a solid three, I am going to post my rating as a 4 so no one will know what a thick-he I know I should like Kevin Berry’s novel Night Boat to Tangiers more than I do. After all, this book has been getting great reviews and it was longlisted for the Booker prize this year. Chip and Joanna Gaines were even overheard remarking that they loved this novel more than “open concept kitchens, rustic furniture made from rusty farm equipment, and shiplap.” !!!!! So even though I feel this novel rates only a solid three, I am going to post my rating as a 4 so no one will know what a thick-headed Neanderthal I actually am. If the thousands of readers who daily peruse my book reviews over their morning cup of dark-roasted signature blend were to know that I am just another knuckle-dragging, mouth breathing mayo-eater, then I would become the laughing stock of all of Goodreads. Why my wife would lose all respect for me, my 9-year-old child would take up rolling drunks with the rough crowd, and my dog would vacate his bowels into my prized suede loafers. I cannot, neigh, I will not let that happen again. So a 4 it is!
Berry’s book has been recognized for his very pretty writing. He takes more care composing his poetic sentences then most pediatricians use delivering newborns. Right there that is a red flag. For me poetic writing is up there with back-alley prostate exams, tax preparation from 3rd graders, and boxes of free spiders as an indicator that I should just look straight ahead, move along at a steady pace, and get as far away as is possible. I prefer my stories to be much more plot driven.
Night Boat to Tangiers tells the tale of two aging criminals waiting in the squalid ferry terminal of Algeciras. Charlie and Maurice are looking for Maurice’s lost daughter. The two Irishmen have been rode hard and put away wet. As they search through crowds of weary travelers, looking to find a clue to the whereabouts of the missing Dilly, they reminisce about their past, their misfortunes, and the hard life-choices that have led them to this terminal at this hour.
Berry uses his novel as an exercise to show humanity how great he can write. His talent is brazenly flaunted and I completely understand all the love, this guy is really good. His sentences must be slowly savored, then regurgitated to be savored again or you will miss key aspects. But this continuous disgorging and studying of the discharge is tiring to me, it is too much like work.
That being said, Night Boat to Tangiers was entertaining and well worth a read, definitely better than open concept kitchens, but no way as good as shiplap.
...more

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Jul 04, 2019 Ingrid rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It's sad, it's rough and it's beautiful. ...more

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Jul 27, 2019 Doug rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5, rounded down.

Up to about the 60% point, I wasn't really liking this much, as I found it extremely difficult to follow, and the lack of both narrative cohesiveness and the use of obtuse language (I kept hitting the glossary on my Kindle, only to be told 'No definition found') made it more of a slog than I was prepared for. Yes, the language often took flight into lofty heights of lyrical ecstasy, but I am much more interested in plot than language, and that lack of a narrative just wasn't im ...more

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Aug 10, 2019 Lee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm throwing stars about like there's no end to them at the moment but: this is Barry's best work and is stupendously good, and forms part of a Booker longlist that's potentially as interesting/excellent as any I can remember.

'There comes a time when you just have to live among your ghosts. You keep the conversation going. Elsewise the broad field of the future opens out as nothing but a vast emptiness ' ...more

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Jan 21, 2020 Claire rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Far from a traditional, plot driven crime novel, Night Boat to Tangier is perhaps better described as a character study of two ageing criminals, or an examination of the impact a lifestyle of crime has on relationships and our psyche. Barry is an outstanding storyteller. Although largely plotless, this novel is one that creates both a vivid sense of place and person. In few words, Barry seems able to say a lot about people, their evolution and weaknesses, and the fragility of our worlds in the f ...more

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Aug 11, 2019 Barbara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: irish-books, spain, 2019-reads, literary-fiction, book-award-nominee

Kevin Barry believes in an economy of words. I love the concept and Barry has embraced it to the core for this novel. As a college professor, I constantly pushed this on my students, who thought more was better. I recently saw Barry (July 2019) in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in conversation with the Belfast-based writer, Jan Carson. He described his approach to writing, and in particular, the writing of this book. His process is to write and write and write, and then pull out the best parts. I oft Kevin Barry believes in an economy of words. I love the concept and Barry has embraced it to the core for this novel. As a college professor, I constantly pushed this on my students, who thought more was better. I recently saw Barry (July 2019) in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in conversation with the Belfast-based writer, Jan Carson. He described his approach to writing, and in particular, the writing of this book. His process is to write and write and write, and then pull out the best parts. I often express my growing impatience with the proliferation of books that are grossly inflated, poorly edited, and too often veer into poor writing. This novel is the antithesis of this trend. Barry’s labor has resulted in a novel that provides gorgeous and profound prose, and a very moving story.

This novel is the story of an Irish father searching for his daughter. Maurice Hearne and his longtime partner, Charlie Richmond are in the port of Algeciras, Spain looking for Maurice’s estranged daughter, Dilly. Dilly, in her early 20’s, is part of a loosely organized troupe of 21st century hippies who haunt the port, and cross back and forth to Morocco. They are involved in the drug trade, albeit on a small scale. In this respect, Dilly is a chip off the old block. Maurice made and lost fortunes dealing heroin in Ireland. But despite his chaotic life, Maurice was a man who loved his family. Maurice was forced to leave that life behind to escape other criminals who’d be delighted to kill him.

The opening scene of the novel is a comical scene in the port of Algeciras as Maurice and Charlie try to ask about the ferry schedule at the information kiosk. Maurice and Charlie and their endless wait for the arrival of the ferry from Tangier may remind readers of Didi and Gogo in Waiting to Godot. But the resemblance is superficial. Barry’s deftness at creating humorous scenes is evident in this segment. The attempts of the two Irishmen to get anything (even acknowledgement) from the employee at information kiosk resembled collisions I’ve observed in Scottish tourism offices. Years ago, a Scottish friend warned me that tourist offices were known for not giving tourists information. They see their job as promoting local tourism and don't want to help tourists looking to go to other parts of Scotland. On one occasion near Skye, I observed some Spanish tourists in the local tourism office looking for information. Pointing to their map of the northwest coast beyond Skye, they asked the tourist office employee what they could see up that way. The man told them “I cannae say” and “I dinnae know” – using a mix of Scots and English. The Spaniards were flummoxed and though tempted to intervene, I didn’t relieve their confusion. But I must add that I appreciate the Scottish approach to tourism, and it makes me laugh. It is worth knowing that the offer of information whether in Algeciras or Skye can be an empty promise.

The story shifts back and forth in time as Barry builds a portrait of a criminal who is not, at his core, a bad man. Maurice has a good heart and has done some very bad things. He dealt drugs in Cork, and the surrounding areas, and his place to escape was the Beara peninsula. Maurice’s one true love was Didi’s mother, Cynthia, and he adored his daughter from the moment she was born. He spent years in Spain, in Málaga, Barcelona, and Seville on the run from Irish thugs, and these segments feature luscious prose. The segments describing the atmosphere of the Spanish cities were my favorites as exemplified in this segment set in Barcelona :
Outside the internet café, a gypsy kid and his girlfriend sold punnets of chestnuts from a roasting cart and kissed. They looked like the year 1583. The air was dark blue and had the smoke of old poetry at dusklight.

There are also some stunning descriptions of the Beara Peninsula:
This was the summer Dilly lit out for the territories late at night and drifted about the empty country roads alone. To be at the far end of the peninsula on a summer’s night with a paleness in the sky after midnight even – it was like a sad film about an island of the north. When you know at some level that you’re saying goodbye to it all. The loveliness of these bereft roads by night. The ferns in the ditches that were hardly moving but breathed in the warm night breeze, it seemed, and even spoke.

Barry also writes screenplays and like his novel City of Bohane, this novel is steeped with a cinematic vision. As an ardent reader and a lover of film, Barry gives me both in one beautiful package. Barry’s spot on the 2019 Booker Longlist is well deserved. This novel serves up Barry’s classic humor, and characters to care about, and is his best to date.

For my November contemporary Irish fiction book club, I reread the book by listening to the audiobook. It was read by the author. I highly recommend both the audiobook and reading the physical book. Reading the book lets the reader savor the language and the writing. It is a wonderful novel and Barry's reading of it is delightful. ...more

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Jan 25, 2020 Ken rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, world-literature, finished-in-2020

This book pushed all the literary buttons I like. Not much happens (check), excellent characterization (check), flourishes of stop-and-reread-that-sentence writing (check), and a dash of philosophy (checkmate).

At first it seems we're entering genre fiction with two bad-ass Irish thuggety-thug types waiting at the Spanish port of Algeciras. Maurice (Moss) and Charles (Charlie) might as well be waiting for Godot, but they're waiting instead for Moss' long-lost daughter, Dilly. "She's a small girl, ...more

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Feb 01, 2021 Elyse Walters rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, award-nomine-or-winner, mystery-thriller-crime, cultural, literary-fiction, europe, irish

Audiobook....read by the author, Kevin Barry

It took me a little time to feel committed to this story. For me...It didn’t pull me in right away....but after a few chapters...I ‘was’ hooked.

This was my first experience with Kevin Barry’s work.

Maurice and Charlie, two geezers, Iris buddies, (and sometimes competitors), in their 50’s were waiting for ‘ the night boat’ ...in the port of Algeciras. (the largest commercial port and the Mediterranean —in Spain).
They were looking for Maurice’s missing ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Neale rated it really liked it

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE.

Maurice and Charlie are both Irish, they are both in their fifties, and they are both dressed in cheap suits waiting at the Spanish port of Algeciras. They seem to be locked into a perpetual never ending conversation, jumping from stories of their past with the casual ease of long-time friends. One will start a sentence, the other will finish it. One will ask a question, the other will answer it. The reader will find it obvious from their demeanour that they LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE.

Maurice and Charlie are both Irish, they are both in their fifties, and they are both dressed in cheap suits waiting at the Spanish port of Algeciras. They seem to be locked into a perpetual never ending conversation, jumping from stories of their past with the casual ease of long-time friends. One will start a sentence, the other will finish it. One will ask a question, the other will answer it. The reader will find it obvious from their demeanour that they are gangsters, crooks, men accustomed to violence. It is also only a short wait before we find out that the pair are looking for a young girl named Dilly Hearne, and that they are expecting to find out something on this day, at this port about her whereabouts.

She is either travelling to Tangier, or returning from Tangier, whichever it is, Maurice and Charlie have been told by a man from Malaga that it will happen today, the 23rd of the month. They find a young man named Benny and his dog, and, with veiled threats promising furtive violence, they find out from Benny that he may know something about Dilly’s location. Being Irish gangsters, Maurice and Charlie decide to take Benny to the nearest pub to find out more. Maurice tells Benny that Dilly is his daughter and has been looking for her for three years. Once in a more secluded area, the furtive violence emerges from hiding and Benny knows that he is in deep trouble.

The second chapter will jump back in time to the 90’s with a lone Maurice meeting a man who gives him a piece of paper after he has written the number of a bank account on it, all the while warning Maurice to forget going through with whatever he plans to do. The man is clearly shaken with fear and there is no uncertainty that whatever Maurice is planning it will be fraught with danger.

So the novel is really two narratives, one set in the present, with Maurice and Charlie looking for Maurice’s daughter, and one set in the 90’s which is used to present Maurice and Charlie’s early years and how they became the men they are in the present narrative.

Late in the novel, we see the narrative from Dilly’s perspective and get an insight as to why she has run away. Her fears that she may become like her father and fall into the same way of life, and perhaps something else.

The novel, is however, predominantly about Maurice’s life, told through his conversation with Charlie in the present, and the alternate chapters which take part in the past. For me the strength of the novel are the conversations, they are so wonderfully written. I could imagine the Irish accents as I tried to decipher some of the slang. Yes indeed, the Irish slang flies thick and fast. What is it about the Irish language that makes it so readable?

Maurice is such an interesting character. He seems to have been at war with himself his whole life. Battling his urges and lusts. Lusts for drugs, lusts for sex, lusts for anything but idleness and boredom. Much of his life has been in torment. He questions his character, and as he gets older starts to think about his mortality. He feels that finding his daughter may be his redemption.

This is a brilliant short novel. How Barry squeezes such a narrative into such a small page count is tremendous. 4.5 Stars!

...more

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Apr 29, 2019 Neil rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, 5-stars, 2019-booker, 2019-top-books

This was my second time through this book. I loved it on first read and the combination of its Booker listing and a long train journey made the perfect opportunity for a re-read.

Upfront - I loved it even more on second reading (you can’t tell this from my rating as I gave it 5 stars first time round).

It is October 2018 and Maurice Hearne and Charles Redmond, drug dealers, are keeping vigil at the Algeciras ferry terminal in Spain. They are on the lookout for Maurice’s daughter, Dilly, after rumo ...more

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Jun 30, 2019 Ace rated it really liked it

Do you think about Cynthia, Maurice?
I try not to. She goes through me sometimes.
Into the middle distance they train their hard stares. There is a stock of hard knowledge to be drawn on. They know what they had once and what was lost.

Moss and Charlie are waiting for their daughter/niece Dilly who has been missing for three years to step off or onto the ferrys coming in and out from Tangier into the port of Algeciras, Spain. Over the next couple of days we learn about their youth, the drug runni ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Eric Anderson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The plot of “Night Boat to Tangier” isn’t what drew me to this book. Two aging Irish gangster wait at a Spanish port for a particular boat to arrive as they mull over the past and seek answers to what happened to one of their lost children named Dilly. Stories about gangsters usually put me off because many seem to revel in a kind of machismo that makes my eyes roll. But I enjoyed Kevin Barry’s previous novel “Beatlebone” so much that this is a writer I’ll eagerly follow no matter what subject h ...more

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Nov 04, 2019 Kristy K rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, netgalley, arc, 3rd-person-pov, 2019

I struggled with this character driven, loose plot novel. I seem to be in the minority here, but I didn't find it engrossing, rather I found it at times to sound a little pretentious. The prose tended to be melodramatic, but I did like how atmospheric they were as well.

Literary fiction is not my favorite genre, so I don't know that I was the intended audience for this. I would caution anyone else who also reads few literary fiction books, but recommend it to those that enjoy it.

I received an ad ...more

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Dec 22, 2019 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: irish, booker-2019, 2019, literary-fiction

I'm devastated that I didn't love this, given how much this seemed to be right up my literary alley. I was confident that the criticisms I'd heard - slow, not emotionally engaging enough, too much drug talk - wouldn't faze me. I mean, I know my tastes; two aging Irish gangsters sitting on a pier discussing their shared history of drug smuggling actually seems like a recipe for perfection. But to say that this left me cold would be an understatement. Barry's writing is really very good, so th ...more

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Aug 12, 2019 Susie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This one is going straight to the top of my list.

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About Kevin Barry

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Kevin Barry is an Irish writer. He is the author of two collections of short stories, and the novel City of Bohane, which was the winner of the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

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“It’s freedom, she says. It’s poverty, Charlie says. Poverty is always for free.” — 4 likes

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