Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The alluring latest from Ryan (The Queen of Dirt Island) comprises intimate monologues from 21 characters grappling with social change in small-town Ireland. The central arc, such as it is, turns on the arrival of a gang of small-time drug dealers and the efforts of locals to drive them out. But this is less a traditional novel than a collection of tightly linked stories animated by the author's unwavering curiosity about what makes people tick. Bobby, a good man who has borne the tragedy of his father's murder, assaults a stranger and worries his wife will find out he's visited a sex worker. Lily, "a witch by training and a whore by inclination," schemes to prevent her beautiful granddaughter from falling under the spell of a drug dealer. Trevor, a former mental patient, mixes and weighs drugs for the dealers in his mother's home. Readers may have trouble keeping track of the many characters, each of whom is connected to the others through webs of family relations and ancient bad blood, but their monologues rivet with lyrical prose and bolts of gentle humor, such as Trevor's grandiose speculation that he descends from Jonathan Swift given their "many commonalities." This beautifully crafted work offers much to admire. (May)
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