Deirdre Madden’s latest novel is set at the height of the Celtic Tiger, in 2006. Her protagonist, Fintan Buckley, is comfortably off, successful in an understated way, something of an innocent. But he appears to be more acutely aware of the passage of time than a man in his late 40s would be expected to be. As he watches his children grow – his sons now young men, but his daughter still a young child – he becomes slightly untethered from the present, as if the forward march of time is leaving him behind. Coupled with time’s inexorable advance is the plasticity of identity that haunts Fintan, bedevilling his encounters with friends and family. His frantic desire for the domestic bliss of his own family never to change is given form in his sudden attachment to old photographs. The images of times past bring people to life in the present, and the discord between perception and reality are part of Fintan’s struggle. There is an unmistakably golden glow to Madden’s descriptive passages that creates a sepia-like tinge to this measured and reflective novel.
