A review by bgg616
The Thing About December by Donal Ryan

4.0

I am caught between giving this book 4 or 5 stars. This novel was published after The Spinning Heart but is Donal Ryan's first novel that was rejected. I think I appreciated more after reading The Spinning Heart. It tells the story of Johnsie Cunliffe, the resident of a small town in County Limerick (we assume). Johnsie is a man who once would have been labeled "mentally retarded" and now might be called developmentally disabled. His parents protected him growing up, but now they are both gone. This is a story about the tremendous loneliness of an individual with no friends. Some of the best passages in the book describe this loneliness. When a land boom comes to town, Johnsie is no longer friendless, but too naive to understand he is being used. This story also brings to mind those aging parents who have adult children with special needs, and worry what will become of them when they are no longer around.