In this reviewer’s (probably prejudiced) view, there are few issues as satisfying as work of Irish literature. The type doesn’t matter an excessive amount of; a poem, a brief story, a play, even a novel that is unnecessary— you, Finnegan’s Wake. A genius Irish author can, within the phrases of the Irish playwright J.M. Synge, make the English language “as fully flavoured as a nut or apple.” Such is the case with Colin Barrett’s first novel, Wild Houses.
The setup is easy: Dev Hendrick lives alone in County Mayo together with his late mom’s yappy little canine, Georgie. One wet Friday evening, Dev’s cousins, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, drag a youngster to Dev’s residence and anticipate Dev to cover him. The teenager, Donal “Doll” English, is the brother of Cillian, a petty drug vendor who owes the Ferdias—or their drug lord boss—cash. Cillian will get Doll again if he coughs up the money by Monday.
Certainly, the scenario ratchets up the reader’s nervousness, to say nothing of that of Doll’s mom, Sheila, and his smart girlfriend, Nicky. These are the oldsters who take it upon themselves to seek out lots of cash in not lots of time. Ironically, Cillian did as soon as have what he owes, nevertheless it was washed away by a turlough, a short lived lake that, in keeping with him, solely occurs in West Ireland.
But when you come for the nail-biting plot, you’ll keep for Barrett’s beautiful language. Consider such phrases as this description of a TV: “its screen patinaed in a fuzz of glinting dust.” The sagging nets of a derelict tennis courtroom are “as frayed as used dental floss.” Gabe Ferdia has “a face on him like a vandalised church.” And so on. Barrett, writer of the brief story collections Young Skins and Homesickness, treats the sketchiest of his characters with tenderness and compassion. Wild Houses is a surprising work.
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