The Redemption Factory - Softcover

Millar, Sam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560258608 ISBN 13: 9781560258605

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Pr, 2005

Synopsis

In a wood at night a young woman witnesses the murder of a whistleblower by a corrupt businessman, owner of a slaughterhouse. Paul Goodman, a would-be snooker champion working at the slaughterhouse, has never known his father and wrongly believes that he deserted him when young. But he is befriended by the one man who holds the key to the mystery of his father's disappearance, and the man responsible for his death. Critically acclaimed author Sam Millar weaves a compelling story in Redemption Factory — about the struggle to acknowledge a wrong, and about loyalty and corruption, life and death.

About this title

About the Author

Sam Millar lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is married with three children. He has enjoyed critical and professional acclaim for his work in literary publications throughout Europe, Africa, Australia, and America. A winner of the Brian Moore Short Story Award for his short story "Rain" in 1998 he has also been short-listed for numerous other literary awards including the Martin Healy Short Story Award and The Cork Literary Review Award.

Two of his stories, "New York" and the award-winning "Rain" have both been performed and transmitted by BBC radio. DARK SOULS was his first novel and ON THE BRINKS is an autobiographical memoir.

Reviews

Twisty, dark, and fetid as a maze of back alleys, this vivid ramble about the fate of a man caught up in the family drama at a slaughterhouse packs a powerful punch. Millar gives his imagination full and disturbing rein, setting the tone with a literal bloodbath inflicted on Paul Goodman as an endurance test when he applies for a job at Shank's abbatoir. Shank's daughter Geordie, one of the most vicious and skillful workers at the slaughterhouse, masterminds Paul's dunking and soon perversely captures his heart, enraging her jealous sister, Violet. Paul is the only physically and mentally hale character in the entire book; Geordie's legs have been crippled since birth, Violet is disfigured from a car accident, Shank himself is psychopathic, and Paul's best friends are the pathetically helpless Lucky and the age-twisted Kennedy, whose dying diabetic wife controls his life with an iron will. Given the misery-ridden cast and setting, the most surreal surprise is the semblance of a happy ending.
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You could say this is about a slaughterhouse worker who falls in love with the boss' daughter, and you'd be right, sort of. Millar's vision is much darker than the typical tale of star-crossed lovers: the factory where Paul Goodman works is an abattoir straight out of Hieronymous Bosch, and his girlfriend, Geordie, is a cruel cripple who oversees the furious killing. When they run afoul of Geordie's father, the slaughterhouse owner, it isn't a matter of an overly protective papa--it's a life-and-death scenario. In a parallel plot, Goodman forges a friendship with a henpecked shopkeeper who, unbeknownst to him, knows the secret to the long-ago disappearance of Goodman's father. Millar (On the Brinks, 2003) has been jailed in both Ireland (for IRA activity) and the U.S. (for armored-truck robbery), and his prose smacks of self-teaching. It's sometimes lyrical, sometimes overwritten--and sometimes weak on the fundamentals. The brutality of his grotesque world further limits the audience. But for those who like their tales dark and dank, this near-gothic thriller might be meat and potatoes. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Pr
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1560258608
• ISBN 13: 9781560258605
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256