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A review by angelayoung
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
It's clear from Trespasses that Louise Kennedy knows both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland well. Her protagonist, Cushla (whose name comes from the Irish: A chuisle mo chroi: the pulse of my heart or, sweetheart, darling) is Catholic, but she lives and works as a teacher in the largely Protestant North during The Troubles (late 1960s - 1998: Trespasses is set in the 1970s). Louise Kennedy lives in Sligo now, but she grew up a few miles from Belfast (or, as her novel tells us: Béal Feirste, which roughly translates from the Irish as 'the mouth of the river (or sandbar).)
I love novels that are well-written and that, as I read, I learn things from. Trespasses is beautiuflly written: it took me into its Irish world (north and south in terms of language) and taught me Irish words (Cushla joins an English-speaking group of Northerners who want to learn Irish); and Kennedy spins its beautiful and beautifully poignant and cruel world subtly and captivatingly. I didn't want the novel to end. The words sang in my mind and the story drew me inexorably and delightfully on. Kennedy threads subtle hints of what's to come through the novel so that by the time I'd finished, everything that happened made complete (and cruel and heart-breaking) sense. The novel is book-ended with a scene in 2015, the first of which subtly (that word again, Kennedy's writing is so subtle: she fed me hints of what was to come as if she was feeding me parings of cheese) ... 2015, the first of which subtly warned me of what was to come - there's a telling detail that I missed on first reading - but even if I had noticed that detail it would only have added to my sense that Cushla's youthful happiness [spoiler alert] couldn't last. And I would have read on willing it to last and desperate to find out why it didn't.
Please read Trespasses both for the beauty, straightforwardness and humour of its language (and its love of language) and for a heartbreakingly beautiful, compellingly subtle story of love between a Catholic and a Protestant in a terribly divided community.
I love novels that are well-written and that, as I read, I learn things from. Trespasses is beautiuflly written: it took me into its Irish world (north and south in terms of language) and taught me Irish words (Cushla joins an English-speaking group of Northerners who want to learn Irish); and Kennedy spins its beautiful and beautifully poignant and cruel world subtly and captivatingly. I didn't want the novel to end. The words sang in my mind and the story drew me inexorably and delightfully on. Kennedy threads subtle hints of what's to come through the novel so that by the time I'd finished, everything that happened made complete (and cruel and heart-breaking) sense. The novel is book-ended with a scene in 2015, the first of which subtly (that word again, Kennedy's writing is so subtle: she fed me hints of what was to come as if she was feeding me parings of cheese) ... 2015, the first of which subtly warned me of what was to come - there's a telling detail that I missed on first reading - but even if I had noticed that detail it would only have added to my sense that Cushla's youthful happiness [spoiler alert] couldn't last. And I would have read on willing it to last and desperate to find out why it didn't.
Please read Trespasses both for the beauty, straightforwardness and humour of its language (and its love of language) and for a heartbreakingly beautiful, compellingly subtle story of love between a Catholic and a Protestant in a terribly divided community.