I seem to be reading a lot of books these days with
gratuitous magical realism. This is
another. Once again, I don’t really see
that it contributes anything to the storyline.
This novel’s other fault is that it is supremely dreary. Tomás, the father of three children, is an
Irish cartographer during the years after the famine. He works for the British “redcoats” to have
money to supplement his family’s meager farm income. When the book opens, he is mapping a remote
peninsula, with his ten-year-old son, Liam, as his assistant. There Tomás encounters a magical pool that
alters the trajectory of his family’s future.
His backstory is pretty bleak, but then so is the rest of the book. The narrative eventually focuses on his sons
and two daughters, Enda and Rose. The
other son, Eugene, is a good worker but never speaks, and we are never told
why. I don’t know if the author set out
to take issue with Catholicism, but she does so very effectively and somewhat
emphatically. A viscount’s son may be
the most evil character in the book, but the local priest is far from being
kind and compassionate, especially when he is trying to perform an exorcism on
Tomás. Of course, I guess if you’re
trying to destroy a demon, you may overlook the fact that you’re killing its
host. I appreciate a good epic family
saga, and that’s what we have here. I
just wish it were a little less depressing.
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