Customer Reviews

Civil and Strange

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It is easy to forget, when all the media coverage of modern Ireland tends to concentrate on the skyline of cranes over Dublin, that the countryside still exists, and that it too is modernising in its own way - perhaps not with cranes, but with a more accepting attitude to things which are different or new. This new novel concentrates on that point - Ellen is escaping the city and a failed marriage, making a new life in the countryside where she spent happy childhood holidays and her arrival in Ballydoon creates a new ripple in that very small pond. Ellen's progress is observed by her uncle Matt and by local woman Beatrice, two beautifully drawn characters who are dealing with tragedies and unhappiness in their own lives. I won't give away the ending, but the resolution is skillfully achieved without any mawkishness or unnecessary sentimentality. It is a satisfying book, both in terms of the characters drawn and the resolution achieved.

thoughtful and interesting.
I'm still chewing over Matt's tirade against the Catholic Church--how it deprived many from his older generation of happiness, the secrets, and ridicule, "the confessionals doing the work of spies", a hold that wasn't weakened until the child abuse scandal broke.