MILKMAN by Anna Burns

At first I thought this book took place in the future under a reactionary, repressive government, but, no, it’s Belfast in the 1970s.  (So glad I read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing.)  The narrator is an 18-year-old Catholic girl whose life is pretty much dictated by the unrest and violence, and almost every family has at least one member killed in the ongoing turmoil.  Almost no names are used in this novel, and I found this quirk to be charming and funny, and I had less of an issue keeping the characters straight than I normally do.  The writing style is unusual, in a good way, and a little hard to describe.  It’s conversational and melodic and at times repetitive, and I loved it.  I also marveled at the little absurdities that loomed large during this turbulent era in Northern Ireland.  For example, the “renouncers” occasionally install a curfew, just as a show of power.  As for the title, there are actually two milkman characters—one who actually delivers milk and one who is a highly placed revolutionary whose last name is Milkman.  The author perfectly delineates these two characters without causing reader confusion.  The latter Milkman is stalking the narrator, and the rumor mill has already decided that she is having an affair with Milkman.  Her vehement, and truthful, denials go completely unheeded, making her life so Kafkaesque that she stops doing many of the activities that she loves.  She is known for reading while walking but gives up this habit when the community deems it arrogance, given that Milkman’s attentions immunize her from being mugged.  This upheaval spills over into her personal relationships.  The narrator’s maybe-boyfriend may be a target for a car bomb, perhaps because Milkman is jealous, but this threat is supposedly wielded as punishment for purchasing the supercharger from a rare Blower Bentley--not just because it is a British car but because it might have a Union Jack on it.  Outrageous, maybe, but still completely plausible.