In this remarkable collection, nothing is ever quite what it seems. A pagan couple runs a B&B that has a moving dolmen out the back; an unexpected visitor arrives, carrying Descartes’s skull in a plastic bag; and Ballinasloe witnesses the beginning of the end of George W Bush. Set mainly in the rural midlands, basic aspects of Irish life (the church, the local paper, the land itself) are critiqued and celebrated in a tone as enlightening as it is entertaining. In one story, a woman confronts the priest who abused her; yet in another, a particularly devout farmer remarks wistfully that “no one else does moving statues like us”. Farrell’s characters inhabit the margins, bound by a search for constants, such as love, family and a desire to belong. Farrell, a former priest and journalist, has brought this often-complex “life here below” to the surface.
