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A review by johnstonmr
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane
5.0
I'm not sure I could say anything about this book other than that it is, in a word, brilliant. Written about a place Deane knew quite well, the book has that rare gift of making the reader feel intimately familiar with a place and a people he has never seen. Questions of truth, family history and the often-messy result of keeping it hidden, as well as vendetta and guilt by association, riddle the book. There are questions as to how much of the book is fiction and how much is fictionalized fact; I don't know that we'll ever know the true answer to that--and, really, it doesn't matter. Even if none of it really happened, events just like those in the book happened to many, many Irishmen and their families.
I don't want to give anything away, so I'm keeping plot details out of this, but I will say that it touches upon the Troubles of the early 20th century, and the harm done in those times to families on both sides, harm which often lingers for decades after the fact.
Be warned: It's sad, almost beyond the telling. The shadows of events that concern every character (which all happened long before the book opens) are felt for years, and the shadow falls across the entire life of the main character. This is not a happy book, despite the possibly-upbeat ending.
I don't want to give anything away, so I'm keeping plot details out of this, but I will say that it touches upon the Troubles of the early 20th century, and the harm done in those times to families on both sides, harm which often lingers for decades after the fact.
Be warned: It's sad, almost beyond the telling. The shadows of events that concern every character (which all happened long before the book opens) are felt for years, and the shadow falls across the entire life of the main character. This is not a happy book, despite the possibly-upbeat ending.