Irish Fiction: Hugh O'Donnell's first novel concerns a young boy named Robbie as he goes about the daily business of growing up in the north inner city of Dublin in the 1950s. O'Donnell has written film scripts for Jim Sheridan's film company, for Universal Studios and for other independent producers; indeed, it has to be said that the mark of the scriptwriter is apparent throughout, writes Christine Dwyer Hickey.
This is a novel one sees as one reads. The story moves swiftly from scene to scene, with all the expected Dubs in tow; youngfellas and youngwans, oulwans and oulfellas, and a dog called Bobbie.
While recovering from a head injury following a crush at the gates of Croke Park, Robbie decides he has been given the powers of a miracle worker, and indeed he appears to have many successes in that area, perhaps a few too many, curing all ills with a touch and a prayer, ranging from a shortage of money to his beloved father's cancerous tumour.
The story takes a darker turn when Robbie is sent to the orthopaedic hospital for observation. This is the most moving part of the novel. Here he meets the maimed and the deformed, children who are incarcerated and often have little chance of ever going home. There is the Thalidomide boy who has never been outside the hospital, the polio victims who try to make the most of their lot, the bedridden who spend endless days being aired on the verandah. Awful food, incompetent doctors and randy nurses who take sexual advantage of patients (in particular one Nurse Bannister, who invites the boys to feel her "diddies" on a regular basis). There are the little romances that flit between the boys' ward and that of the girls. All this is handled with a light touch, preventing these scenes from becoming too harrowing.
For the most part the voice of Robbie works, if occasionally he appears a little naïve for a boy who spends quite a bit of his time running wild around Sheriff Street.
But for all that, his optimism and capacity for love keep the story afloat.
11 Emerald Street is hailed on the accompanying publisher's blurb as being "in the tradition of Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" and again on the back of the book Robbie's voice is compared to that of Paddy Clarke. This does a disservice to the writer, raising expectations that are bound to be disappointed. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a world away from this book, his voice as subtle as a whisper. Robbie on the other hand has a tendency to shout at the reader. 11 Emerald Street relies too heavily on a series of funny incidents to move the narrative along, resulting in this reader, anyway, finding it to be rather more Paddy Crosby than Paddy Clarke.
Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist and short story writer. Her latest novel, Tatty, has just been published by New Island
11 Emerald Street: A Novel. By Hugh O'Donnell, Jonathan Cape, 198pp. £10