Tag Archives: contemporary novels set in Ireland

#BookReview ‘Earth’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #Elements #contemporary

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Evan Keough is a handsome, talented famous footballer. Accused of being an accessory to rape, he becomes notorious. It is up to the reader to work out the truth of Evan’s evidence, his back story, the stories he gives to his mother and to priest Ifechi. Earth by John Boyne is second in his Elements quartet and, like its predecessor Water, is another small book with a powerful story. John BoyneLike Willow in Water, Evan’s past story is revealed in pieces. As a boy on the remote Irish island first introduced in Water, Evan is unable to be who or what he wants to be. He knows he is gay. He is certain he wants to be a painter. Unfortunately he is better at football, which he hates but which his  father loves, and is a moderate artist.
A theme that runs through the first two books in the Elements quartet is complicity in guilt, about burying deeply the moral instinct of right and wrong, and dealing with the consequences as time passes. It is about bearing a grudge. Throughout the story I didn’t know if Evan was truthful or not, never knew what he was hiding. His back story is brutal at times and difficult to read. Evan’s down-to-earth upbringing is contrasted with the wealth he encounters in London and in the world of professional football. The theme of earth runs throughout the book, the burial of the dead, earth as a hiding place, of being grounded to the earth of losing a foothold, of the final return of a traveller to the soil of their homeland.
I can’t say I enjoyed reading Earth, the first of John Boyne’s books that I can say that about. It is a truthful, awkward, shameful and sad book about a young man who can’t find his place in life, who is horribly abused and exploited. I remain unclear about culpability. Boyne purposely blurs the line between lies and truth, both in the evidence given in court and discussion on social media. In today’s world, the presence or absence of data on a mobile phone can win or lose a criminal trial, and public speculation about guilt and innocence is often based on ideas not fact where the loudest voices are heard.
A disturbing social commentary.

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… Curious? Read the #FirstPara of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES here.
WATER #1ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘Nutshell’ by Ian McEwan
‘Lean Fall Stand’ by Jon McGregor
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DAYSWITHOUTEND

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview EARTH by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7s0 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon

#BookReview ‘Water’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #Elements #contemporary

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Who is Willow Hale? When Vanessa Carvin arrives on an unnamed Irish island, she changes her name to Willow and shaves her head. Can she simply disappear or will her past follow her? Water by John Boyne is first in his Elements quartet. It is a small book with a powerful story. John BoyneVanessa is escaping a truly horrendous time but at heart she knows she must acknowledge the choices she made throughout a difficult marriage. On the island she hopes to escape notice, but few people live there and everyone is curious about the newcomer. Her landlord is invisible, her daughter Rebecca is ghosting her messages, her nearest neighbour is nosy. She does connect with local priest Ifechi, Bananas the cat and neighbouring young farmer Luke. ‘I can call myself Willow Hale till the cows come home but, underneath, I’m still Vanessa Carvin. I just can’t let anyone know.’
Slowly as Vanessa remembers, her story becomes clearer. The offence committed by her husband, what she did and didn’t do during this time. Families were broken, not only families of the victims but also the family of the guilty party. Actions have consequences. John Boyne writes with such intensity of emotion and spareness on the page, he takes you straight into Vanessa’s shoes. It takes distance, isolation on an almost empty island surrounded by sea, for Vanessa to admit what happened.
I’m intrigued to see how the books in this quartet of novellas are linked; by theme, character, setting? At the end of Water, Willow says, ‘The elements – water, fire, earth, air – are our greatest friends, our animators. They feed us, warm us, give us life, and yet conspire to kill us at every juncture.’ Earth is next.
Sensitive. Bold. Excellent.

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… Curious? Read the #FirstPara of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES here
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview WATER by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7rt via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- John Boyne

#BookReview ‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd #mystery #contemporary

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I loved Himself by Jess Kidd from the first page. It defies pigeonholing: at once a literary crime mystery, a fond comic tale of an Irish village, an investigation of long-buried secrets of murder and illegitimacy.Jess KiddJess Kidd is a refreshing new voice, I don’t remember enjoying a debut novel this much since Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites though the two books are completely different.
In 1976 Mahony walks into the village of Mulderrig, seeking the truth of his birth twenty-six years earlier. From the forest around the village, and the houses within it, the dead walk out to greet him. They are a silent cast throughout the book, do they hold the answer to the mystery?
Kidd has created a village which feels alive, filled by a cast of characters so clearly drawn, and which swirls between the horrific beating of a nurse, downright nastiness, belly laughs and hallucinogenic drugs. The cast includes a pinched, controlling priest; a wizened old actress who organizes the village play from her wheelchair; a bogeyman who reputedly lives in the forest; and a pub landlord who tries to court the Widow Farelly, a nurse who has the sourest disposition visible to everyone except him. Mahony grew up in a Dublin orphanage, knowing only that he was left there as a baby with a letter marked ‘For when the child is grown’. What he reads in this letter sends him to Mulderrig to find out what happened to his mother, Orla, in 1950.
Did she disappear, running away to a better life, as most of the villagers tell him; or was she murdered? And why was she so hated by her neighbours?
As Mahony, Bridget Doosey, Shauna Burke and the indefatigable Mrs Cauley investigate his origins, the true nastiness of the village emerges.

And see my reviews of these two other novels by Jess Kidd:-
THE HOARDER
THE NIGHT SHIP

If you like this, try:-
‘A History of Loneliness’ by John Boyne
‘Ghost Moth’ by Michele Forbes
‘After the End’ by Clare Mackintosh

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview HIMSELF by Jess Kidd via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-23K