Set in the 1880s in County Monaghan, Eugene McCabe's dark and sombre tale is suitably redolent of the harshness of life at the time. Billy Winters is a middle-aged farmer and quarry owner whose wife has been killed in a tragic accident with a bull. Elizabeth, the girl who lives in his house, is the result of said wife's liaison with another man, but the politically correct attitude of the neighbours is that she is his natural daughter. However, Billy has fallen in love with her and has made a number of drunken advances to her. She, on the other hand, has formed a relationship with and has become pregnant by a wild and ungovernable type named Liam Ward. The seeds are thus set for dark and violent deeds, but overt melodrama is kept at bay by the strength and purity of McCabe's telling of the story. The narrative has an elemental thrust to it that evokes grandeur even in the midst of degradation, with the stony grey soil of Monaghan reverberating to the drum-roll of classic tragedy. A timely issue in paperback for a book that demands to be read.
Vincent Banville