Overview

Arriving in Derry, years after he left for a wandering life - from city to city in Europe, from woman to woman - Niall finds the damaged city of his youth to have changed in all but character. His family too has fractured, and Niall's failure to show up at his father's funeral has encouraged a bitter response. Haunted by past and present fears that threaten to consume him, and insensate for most of the time through a cocktail of booze and drugs, Niall's dangerous relationship with Lorna threatens to push him ever closer to destruction.

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Grim tale of a young man's return to Northern Ireland during the troubled years of the early '90s. Derry is a bleak industrial town in Ulster that has seen better days in just about every sense. Sharply divided socially and politically between Protestants and Catholics, it is the largest city in Northern Ireland after Belfast and the home of some of the worst sectarian violence during the Troubles. For that reason alone, it's a good place to leave, but O'Reilly's antihero Niall seems to have had more personal motives for going away. A Derry native in his early 30s, Niall has just returned home after an absence of several years abroad. Why did he come back? Mainly because, in Italy, he broke up with his girlfriend Valeria. Why did he leave in the first place? That's a good deal murkier. Niall's brother Michael has never forgiven him for leaving-and he was appalled that Niall wouldn't come back for their father's funeral. For his part, Niall seems strangely lacking in bitterness or passion of any kind. He recalls his old girlfriends (many) with occasional regret but no real longing; he drinks fiercely out of what appears to be boredom rather than despair; he argues with his old friend Danny but seems untroubled by any strong opinions of his own. His present girlfriend, Lorna, is a rather humorless socialist who takes Niall to meetings and demonstrations, but her commitment shows no signs of rubbing off on him. In fact, if Niall has any belief at all, it seems to be a kind of 1980s nihilism-a broad contempt for society at large, combined with a vague conviction that political life is meaningless. This might well be a plausible response to life in Northern Ireland today-but it doesn't make for much of a story. Relentlessly gray and lifeless, more a portrait than a tale. (Kirkus Reviews)

Ironically sub-titled 'A Romance', this powerful novel is certainly no heart-warming read. Opening at the scene of a funeral following a suicide, this is the grim journey of Niall, a disaffected young Irishman returning to his roots in Derry after years of self-imposed exile spent aimlessly wandering the cities of Europe. A string of broken relationships haunt him but Niall has not come home in the expectation of comfort. His embittered father has died in his absence, his mother is half-demented as a result of a stroke. As for his remaining family and friends, they are dulled with the effort to make sense of not only this return of the prodigal but of the relentless turbulence of their divided society. Nothing has changed in Ireland for them. Or for Niall: a 'rotted d?j? vu' greets him on all sides. Drunk on whiskey and cynicism, he drifts into an association with Lorna, a political activist committed to changing the fortunes of her beleaguered country. It is then Lorna's tale that Niall tells. Yet we know she is dead before he begins: Lorna is simply the vehicle for Niall's search for his own fractured identity. Set in the context of Northern Ireland's chronic instability - sectarian violence, failed initiatives in the peace process, broken ceasefires - Sean O'Reilly's d?but novel makes for profoundly disturbing reading. Uncompromisingly pessimistic, here is a dark communion with the repressed soul of a man and his tortured country. The sheer force of O'Reilly's prose, however, while evidently paying more than lip-service to the style of James Joyce's Ulysses, carries along an account that at times threatens to be almost unreadably bleak. This author has already established a reputation for himself with Curfew and Other Stories, a lyrical collection of writings published in 2000 that made an affecting contribution to the stock of Irish literature. With this novel, Sean O'Reilly could well be set to become one of its most powerful voices. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Born in Derry in 1969, Sean O'Reilly is the acclaimed author of the short story collection Curfew, and the novel Love and Sleep. He lives in Ireland.

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