"Every now and then a writer emerges who captures the essence of an entire country. Donal Ryan is one of those writers." -- Anne Enright
In a small Irish village hit by the economic crisis, tensions emerge and multiply dangerously. A murder is committed, a child is kidnapped, and an entire community finds itself in a state of shock.
Bobby Mahon was the foreman of a company forced to close its doors, and whose boss ran off with the cash.
"Every now and then a writer emerges who captures the essence of an entire country. Donal Ryan is one of those writers." — Anne Enright
In a small Irish village hit by the economic crisis, tensions emerge and multiply dangerously. A murder is committed, a child is kidnapped, and an entire community finds itself in a state of shock.
Bobby Mahon was the foreman of a company forced to close its doors, whose boss ran off with the cash. Each of the other characters – a young girl worried about her parents' financial difficulties, a single mother, a factory worker, a prostitute, a tyrannical father, a bricklayer of Russian origin – will find themselves linked to him in one way or another, and all will seek to tell their own truth, painting a moving portrait of rural Ireland today and of the human condition, the fragility of relationships and feelings.
In the manner of a choral novel, whose ambitious construction is reminiscent of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Donal Ryan gives voice to twenty-one characters whose voices he alternates, creating a powerful chorus through which the protagonists' divergent perceptions of reality ultimately unfold only one single story.
A particularly inventive and moving text whose extreme darkness conceals a truly devastating humor. A debut novel like few others, original and full of energy, and a young writer as singular as he is talented.
