FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
A few weeks back I came upon Shay Kirwan. Shay is a young man from inner-city Dublin; his mother died young and his father is a bitter, aggressive, alcoholic with whom he has issues. Shay has just been released from prison where he was incarcerated for his part in a botched burglary that involved fire arms. Because of his relationship, or lack of a relationship, with his violent father, Shay, with no one to help or guide him, is more or less homeless.
He’s a lost soul in more ways than one. I feel for Shay. I am concerned for him; concerned for his well-being, how he is going to manage the father/son conflict and how he’s going to cope after his stint in prison. Then, something totally unexpected.
On his release from prison, Shay received news from a solicitor that he had been left a house by his grandmother. Shay is dumbfounded. As for the house, it’s not in Dublin bu in the wilds of Wicklow. Shay Kirwan is confused and about to enter totally unknown territory.
And where did I come upon Shay? I came upon him in a book! Shay is the main character in The Left House a newly published novel by Kilkenny writer Orla Hennessy. Orla lives in Kilmanagh with her husband, Ger, two horses and three feral cats. This is Orla’s first novel and I loved it. From start to finish I was caught up in Shay Kirwan’s world. I worried about how he’d cope with his vindictive, alcoholic father and how he’d adjust to living in a run-down, dilapidated, house in the middle of nowhere; it was like moving from inner city Dublin to Outer Mongolia. I really felt for Shay as he tried to come to terms with a way of life that was totally alien to him.
I was with him every step of the way because of Orla Hennessy’s insightful, sensitive writing that captured so well this young man’s precarious position in a close-knit rural community where his presence arouses suspicion while the ongoing feud with his father (now jealous of Shay’s good fortune) lurks ominously in the background.
The Left House captivated me and makes for a great summer read – whether on the beach with a bottle of Factor 50, in the back garden with a bottle of chilled beer or in the pub (should the sun prove shy) with whatever you’re having.
Orla, by the way, is also an accomplished, and published, poet whose work has featured in the Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet. Look out for her poem Litany which will feature in the upcoming Broadsheet to be launched this August in the Parade Tower as part of our Arts Festival.
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Staying with books, on May 16, the Guardian newspaper published The 100 Best Novels Of All Time as chosen by authors, critics and academics worldwide. Here are the Top 10: 10. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert. 9. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. 8. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. 7. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy. 6. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. 5 In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust. 4. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf . 3. Ulysses, James Joyce. 2. Beloved, Toni Morrison. 1. Middlemarch, George Eliot.
On June 6, the Guardian published their readers’ Top 100 novels. Here are the Top 10: 10. Ulysses, James Joyce. Tying for 9: Catch 22, Joseph Heller; One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 7. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell. 6. War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy. 5. To Kill A Mockingbird Bird, Harper Lee. 4. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck. 3. Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen. 2. Middlemarch, George Eliot. 1. The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien.
Love to have read them all. I haven’t. I have, however, read a good few and was delighted to see Lord Of The Rings topping the table as my own, all-time favourite novel is Tolkien’s precursor to Lord Of The Rings is The Hobbit.
PS: The Left House is available in the Book Centre, High St Khans, James’s St and some independent bookshops in the South-East and in Dublin.
