The Fall of Light [Paperback]

Niall Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2002

Beginning in Ireland in the early years of the 19th century, the four Foley brothers flee across the country with their father and the large telescope he has stolen. Soon forced apart by the violence of the Irish wilderness, the potato famine, and the promise of America, the brothers find themselves scattered across the world. Their separate adventures unfold in passionate and vivid scenes with gypsies, horse races, sea voyages, and beautiful women. An epic narrative on the meaning of love and home and family, THE FALL OF LIGHT is a dazzling novel by one of the most promising novelists writing today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The travails of the Foley family in the times before and during the Irish potato famine are the subject of Williams's overwrought, unashamedly romantic epic (after Four Letters of Love). Francis Foley inherited his rebel blood from a father who was hung for treason by the English, but his marauding spirit is tamed somewhat when he marries Emer O'Suilleabhain, the daughter of a village schoolteacher. A gardener on the great estate of a mostly absentee grandee, Francis eventually takes to breaking into the big house and looking at the sky through his lordship's telescope, to Emer's dismay; their quarrels escalate into violence and she leaves him. Francis, desperate to find her, packs up his four sons, steals the telescope, sets fire to the estate and runs off. So begins a series of disasters that sees the Foley boys Tomas, Teige and the twins, Finbar and Finan separated and reunited several times as their destinies carry them to Hungary, America and Africa. Tomas, the oldest, falls in love with a beautiful prostitute named Blath, for whom he kills a man. Teige, the youngest, becomes a locally famous horse tamer and runs off with Elizabeth, the daughter of the squire he works for, and Finbar winds up the leader of a gypsy band. Francis himself is nearly drowned, and is rescued by monks; he searches for his sons and is finally reunited with Emer, now a blind woman. Williams veers from lyricism to blarney in swooping, misty paragraphs sure to please his readership. Major ad/promo; 5-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As a novelist, Williams started out big with Four Letters of Love, soon to appear on the silver screen in an adaptation directed by Stanley Tucci. His next, As It Is in Heaven, was shortlisted for the Irish Times Literary Award. Here, four brothers help their father escape 19th-century Ireland with a stolen telescope in tow, then go their separate ways for innumerable adventures.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; 1 edition (March 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446528404
• ISBN-13: 978-0446528405
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,089,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rich Tale of Complex Characters, April 1, 2002

By 

Robert Ryan Langer - FictionAddiction.net (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall of Light (Paperback)

The Fall of Light is an honest story of the Foley family in 18th century Ireland. In relating the dire situations the family members face, Williams hides nothing.

Compared to the comfort of today's technologically advanced society, life in Ireland was far more potent and painful. They were dirty and poor, yet each day they lived life with a dogged determination to make a better life. From the setting to the characters, this story had the ring of truth.

Unlike the typical, tightly plotted novel, The Fall of Light, remained believably unpredictable. Every family member acted and grew according to their complex natures.

None of the characters could be pigeonholed with a single phrase.

To describe Teige, the youngest brother, merely as a horse tamer neglects the passion that smoldered for years before he dared reach above his station in life. The act of pursuing the love of his life had more profound ramifications than the taming of any horse. In a more typically plotted novel, it would have been the taming of the horses that determined the course of Teige's life.

Through the course of the story, the focus continually shifts from a tight, close-up view to broad panoramas. In one paragraph, you see every drop of blood that drips into the muddy street outside a Limerick whorehouse. In another, years pass without incident on a gypsy caravan.

Occasionally, brothers have true visions of lost siblings, seeing them as through a telescope, compressing years into moments. These transitions, instead of having a jarring effect, give the narrative a dreamlike quality that infuses everything Irish.

This is a well-crafted tale. The narrative wove a coherent pattern out of the chaos of life. Spanning decades of time, sometimes in great hurdles of years, the members of the Foley family persevere against harsh reality to find a peace of sorts. Life in those simpler times was in no way less complex than today.

There are, for the most part, only minor flaws with the book. One small error was of the astronomical variety. This story takes place firmly in the 18th century.

Much of the narrative occurs after the 1849 California gold rush and before the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. At one point, Francis Foley, the patriarch of the family, studies a star chart that lists Pluto as one of the planets. Unfortunately, Pluto was not discovered until 1930, long after the end of the tale. This was the only minor distraction in an otherwise well told tale.

This book is a treat for those who enjoy reading about realistic characters striving to survive the turmoil of their lives.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Celtic Eden, April 16, 2002

By 

Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fall of Light (Paperback)

Niall Williams' novel is a joy. He has taken us back to a world, amazingly enough, in the not-so-distant past in Ireland. The episodic journey of the Foley clan does not come with a blazing climax, but is a replete telling of the tale of Francis Foley, his wife and four sons. Consistent with the Irish history of that period, all four sons leave Ireland, two to North America, one to Africa and one all about Europe, especially France. Francis' journey of discontent and pride washes him up on an island that becomes like a Celtic Eden of the heart, an asylum for lost hopes and dreams, a resting place for a Paradise lost. The stories of each of the sons is touching. Teige, the youngest, is the most closely followed; but each receives a special telling. Emer the wife and mother also weathers years of isolation before reunion with Francis and two of her sons. "The Fall of Light" is rich with Irish emotion, gypsy temperment, love, passion, and even the lure of the wild west. This is a tale that gathers you in its grasp, holds you in its grip until depositing you on the last page. Enjoy & savor!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story, September 5, 2004

By 

Mary Reinert (Nevada, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fall of Light (Paperback)

Although I admit it took me just a bit of time to get used to the author's style of sometimes convoluted sentence structure, I could hardly put this story down.

After a fight with this wife, Francis Foley steals a telescope and leaves his Irish home with his four sons. The four sons are then scattered after they think their father has drowned while attempting to cross the Shannon River. The story of each son is remarkable in that each finds himself following a separate road yet never forgetting the others in the family. The father's search for the boys seems to provide a sense of magnetism which draws them all to seek each other.

Each son has a different story and all are followed to one extent or another throughout the book. Although the story of Teige, the youngest son, takes most of the story, the life of Finbar who follows the gypsies is especially well told. The author takes the reader from Ireland across Europe and across the Atlantic to the wide west of America. The potato famine, immigration to America, and the exploration of the West all provide backgrounds for the telling of the Foley boys' stories.

As I read this book, I couldn't help but think of my own ancestors as they traveled from Europe, some to the US and some to New Zealand. Although not Irish, I'm sure each family member left home with his or her own set of troubles and hopes. sometimes conscious decisions were made and other times they were just swept along by circumstances. The road has not been straight as so well described by the Foley family. Highly recommend this book for anyone who has ever wondered about how their own family has fit into the history of the time.