Synopsis
The dramatic history of the creation of the Irish Free State and the brutal Civil War that followed comes to life as four young Irish people become caught up in the emotional turbulence of their time. By the author of The Tenants of Time. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.
Reviews
Flanagan fans will delight in this big new novel celebrating Sinn Fein's fight for Irish independence in the early decades of the century. The author's two previous books, The Year of the French and Tenants of Time , traced Irish republicanism from its origins in the unsuccessful 1798 Rebellion though the failed Fenian uprisings of the second half of the 19th century. This narrative focuses on the movement's partial success during the years of guerrilla struggle that first saw the emergence of the IRA, the drama of the peace negotiations with the British and the terrible civil war that followed when the IRA split over the treaty terms. Flanagan offers a rich mix of fictional and historical characters to tell the larger story of that time (and indeed, it is the course of the Troubles themselves that provides the novel's true tensions). The four major fictional characters who carry the narrative accurately reflect Irish attitudes in those years: two are republican activists and two are sympathetic to the cause but ambivalent as to the methods used. The legendary Michael Collins figures prominently, as he did in history, and the portrait of him is riveting. Winston Churchill is tellingly rendered as well, particularly as he plans to infiltrate rebel Dublin with a special secret service unit that was ultimately destroyed by Collins's brilliant counterstroke. This substantive successor to the author's previous work re-creates a complex period of "terrible beauty" in Irish history, a period which set loose forces that still seek a final resolution. BOMC and History Book Club selections; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Award-winning novelist of Irish history Thomas Flanagan (The Tenants of Time, 1988, etc.) sets his new novel, as densely packed and relentlessly thorough as usual, in the turbulent 1920's, an era whose legacy lingers today in strife-ridden Northern Ireland. The complex story is told in alternating chapters by such characters as Patrick Prentiss, a barrister who lost his arm fighting for the British in World War I; Janice Nugent, a young Irish widow whose husband died fighting at Gallipoli; Christopher Blake, a historian and soon Janice's lover; and the mysterious Frank Lacy, a ruthless soldier whose bedtime reading is Virgil. As is typical in docufiction, a slew of real characters such as Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, and Eamon De Valera, speaking often in their own words or at least uttering sentiments in keeping with their reputations, make numerous appearances to add gravitas to the narrative. Beginning in the spring of 1918, members of Sinn Fein, survivors of the 1916 Uprising, and supporters of Irish Independence form the Irish Republican Army and begin a war that is fought on all sides with ruthless ferocity. The notorious British ``Black and Tans'' are just as savage as the IRA in mounting ambushes, exacting reprisals, and burning enemy houses. As the war continues, Frank Lacy achieves stunning military successes, Christopher Blake does brilliant intelligence work, while Prentiss and Nugent observe and comment from the sidelines. The story, though, is dominated by the legendary and beloved Michael Collins, a man of a thousand disguises and daring ruses. For signing an accord with Britain in 1921 establishing the Irish Free State, Collins is regarded as a traitor by diehard Republicans and is assassinated. A nasty little war with even nastier consequences, deftly described with enough details to satisfy those who prefer their history lightly spritzed with fiction. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
As in The Year of the French ( LJ 5/1/79) and The Tenants of Time ( LJ 12/87), Flanagan has written a compelling historical novel about rebellion in Ireland, its causes and consequences, and what happens to people as their private lives are transformed by--indeed become--public events. Here he covers the years following 1916's Easter Rebellion (an event more important to Irish consciousness than World War I), which will culminate in the creation of an Irish Free State and the waging of brutal civil war. Flanagan gives us history as moments, some dull and some dangerous, in the lives of scores of people, some invented and some actual. At times we witness these moments vividly as they happen, or we may look back at them through the characters' memories as they try to understand what the moments really meant. Superlative reading on The Irish Question; few historical novels about any time or place are as rich and as rewarding as this one. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/93.
-Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Beginning with the award-winning Year of the French (1979), then in the equally impressive Tenants of Time (1988), and now in a no less absorbing third installment, Flanagan continues to expand the chronological dimensions of his splendid rendering of Ireland's long climb to self-determination in the face of parental England's infuriation. (The inherent drama of that struggle--i.e., the actual historical details--forms the background of Flanagan's picture, which he then develops adroitly.) Here, the story focuses on events in the Emerald Isle after World War I, a time when "Ireland was skidding and tumbling into civil war." Employing the same technique so useful in its two predecessors--the narrative alternating among various characters of different backgrounds and views--Flanagan continues his broad sweep through Ireland's tragic but brave history. This was a time when "Home Rule" as a policy was in dispute not only between Irish and English, but also between Catholic and Protestant Irish. First-rate historical fiction that assumes no familiarity with previous installments. Brad Hooper
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