Cal: A Novel [Paperback]

Bernard MacLaverty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1995

"Bernard MacLaverty's powerful novel is a love story as affecting and tragic as you could want."—USA Today

When it was first published, Bernard MacLaverty's fiction masterpiece was hailed by Michael Gorra in the New York Times Book Review as "a marvel of technical perfection. . . . Cal is a most moving novel whose emotional impact is grounded in a complete avoidance of sentimentality. . . . [It] will become the Passage to India of the Troubles."

For Cal, a Belfast teenager who, against his will, is involved in the terrible war between Catholics and Protestants, some of the choices are devastatingly simple: he can work in the slaughterhouse that nauseates him or join the dole queue; he can brood on his past or plan a future with the beautiful, widowed Marcella for whose grief he shares more than a little responsibility.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First published in 1983, this lyrical novel, superficially straightforward but full of stories within stories, first brought Bernard MacLaverty's work to public attention. In the novel, a young Irish Republican Army operative who wants to break the cycle of violence seeks out a woman whose Ulster policeman husband he helped to murder. As their relationship grows, so do Cal's guilt and sorrow, until, in the end, he is forced to make a sacrifice of himself in order to gain redemption. Rich in ideas and history, this book helps us understand the situation in Northern Ireland--which "is not just there," MacLaverty has remarked, "as a colorful background."

Review

It is a work in the classical tradition of the novel; and it has all the beauty and moral seriousness of the form at its best. (Allan Massie )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 153 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st Norton pbk. ed edition (April 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393313328
• ISBN-13: 978-0393313321
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simple but elegant....., June 28, 2001

By 

William Sugarman "nprfan1" (Great Neck, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cal: A Novel (Paperback)

I've had this book on my shelves for almost fifteen years, if you can believe it, but never got around to reading it until this week. Now I can't figure out why it took me so long to open it.

"Cal" describes the "troubles" in Northern Ireland in a simple yet elegant manner, with a bare minimum of explicit violence and gore. Most of the violence is implied - the two exceptions being the story of how Marcella Morton became a widow, and what at first glance seems to be a rather pointless episode concerning a land mine and a cow. It seemed pointless, that is, until you read further and discovered exactly how the land mine came to be there.

While the violence is at a minimum, the thoughts, feelings, and philosophies of each side are explored quite thoroughly for such a small book. And while I personally found both points of view quite repellent, I will say that I believed that the characters in this book had these beliefs, and that they were extremely passionate regarding them.

The book is also an interesting psychological study, at least as far as Cal McCluskey (the main character) is concerned. With the help of Marcella, the woman he comes to love, it seems that he is growing up, and coming to realize that there's a lot more out in the world than just Catholics & Protestants fighting and killing each other - but his past will ultimately work against him and nullify all the good that Marcella has done for him - because he was the driver of the car containing the man that killed her husband.

A touching, sad, and very important book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpectedly haunting., May 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cal: A Novel (Paperback)

This book sat on my bookshelf for 10 years before I finally read it--I'd picked it up in a book sale way back and thought it looked interesting. Don't know why I waited so long to read it, but now that I have, I can't shake it. Its story is deceptively simple, but somehow its images haunt the mind long after reading. I guess it's the timelessness of it themes--violence (unfortunately) and love--because though the book was published in 1983 and the story itself, from hints in the book, I think is set about ten years before that, it obviously still resonates with readers in 1999. I wanted the story to go on, to find out if Cal survived his redemption.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Brutal Tale, February 14, 2001

By 

Rick Terpstra (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cal: A Novel (Paperback)

Bernard MacLaverty's Cal is perhaps on of the saddest books of the last 20 years. The story of a young Catholic man in Northern Ireland, it slowly but surely tears your heart out.

Cal is an unemployed young man who has very tenuous ties to the IRA. He begins to fall for the widow of one of his group's victims as he tries to break free from the IRA's clutches. All the while he is forced to bear the prejudices of his Protestant neighbors.

MacLaverty skillfully writes the tale. He never fools you about how the story will end but none the less he manages to make the reader invest some emotion in Cal so that when the inevitable comes you are just wiped out.

This is a wonderful piece of modern Irish literature.