Milkman by Anna Burns
In late 1970s Northern Ireland, our narrator walks with her nose buried in a book. She does this a lot; she prefers the 19th century to distract herself from the issues that guide her life. One day, the milkman shows up. He knows a lot about her; what she knows about him is that he is an influential paramilitary, and it would not be wise to anger him. He makes it clear that bad things will befall her boyfriend if she continues to see him. […]
Cal by Bernard MacLaverty
‘Would you die for me?’ asks Marcella from Cal after they’ve spent the night together, just the two of them, in a remote farm where Marcella lives with her children and her late husband’s parents. In flashbacks we learn that Cal had been the driver of an execution squad that has killed Marcella’s police officer husband in their doorsteps and gravely injured Marcella’s father-in-law. He hasn’t told Marcella any of this, of course. The novel tells the story of Cal McCluskey who is a young […]
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
This the best historical non-fiction I’ve read in awhile. It might be the best book I’ll read this year. Patrick Radden Keefe takes a subject as serpentine and fraught with strong emotions as The Troubles in Ireland and presents it in a clear concise that is powerful but never melodramatic. He uses the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten who was pulled from her apartment by masked men in 1972 and never seen again until her body was discovered in […]
