A review by ruthlessly
Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan

5.0

He’s not a missing person, more a person missed. Anyway, he’s hers for now, her secret thing, her warm comfort, her project. She’ll tell her dad she’s found him soon enough. She’s never seen a boy like this, so soft and earnest, so devoid of awareness of himself, so ignorant of his own selfishness. She wants to shout at him, Wake up, wake up, the world is hard and it rushes on regardless of your heart, and people never take the shape you want them to, people are stubborn about that, about being themselves, even when they’re trying to be someone else. No one can hide for ever.

[...]

She always thinks of how she used him. How he let himself be used. How his love for her was so complete and hers for him so brittle and so weak. What faulty magic cast these things she didn’t know, what terrible arrangement of their stars.

i really, really loved this.

i know i've read another donal ryan before, which i remember very little about except for thinking the writing was lovely and lyrical, languid and focused in that wonderful way that means the small things take up so much room within the world. this novel is essentially about the one family, the gladney's, in a small town in tipperary, whose daughter goes missing and then comes back five years later. what most struck me about this book is the love and the care that suffuses it. paddy and kit so clearly love each other, they love moll. alex is a star AND i loved reading about him so much. he's a black fella who comes to small town ireland and the way this deals with this is very interesting and i think VERY rural town ireland in the 70s/80s.

the uncomfortable way "difference" functions in this story is really interesting and i think perfectly shown through the lens of a small town catholic ireland. there's a strange tension consistently through all of the POVs, from paddy's confusion at his "good, good little girl" disappearing in such a way, moll's secrets, alex's blackness and josh's anger and grief. i really enjoyed reading this slow, wandering stream through all of it. i enjoyed everything, actually -- including the way this dips into bigger themes (police brutality against black people in london in the 70s, ptsd from the faulklands war). this is a very short book, i suppose -- it's only around 200 pages. but it's a PERFECT length for this story, which i never felt was rushed despite the multigenerational aspect.

i do think as well, i found it SO affecting when talking about family bonds and what can break and make them. the real love that donal ryan put into these characters is so obvious. i fucking LOVED josh's story-within-his-story for what it showed, the love, grief, religion, stubbornness and the father-son bonds. this was beautiful! i really recommend it for a litfic moment.