Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 129
The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde by Joseph Pearce (Hardback; 21.50 IEP / 28.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This powerful and controversial new study of Wilde's brilliant and tragic life is published on the Centenary of his death. Rather than lingering on the mistakes which brought him notoriety, it explores the emotional and spiritual search of this fascinating and complex literary figure. It uncovers how his 'heart of stone' was broken by the two-year prison sentence and probes the deeper thinking behind the masterpieces of his novel, plays, short stories and poetry. It includes discussion of 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' and the posthumously published 'De Profundis' and also traces his love affair with the church.
Hannie Bennet's Winter Marriage by Kerry Hardie (Paperback; 8.45 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Hannie Bennett is a survivor of uncertain origins who has spent her life in Africa and the Far East. There aren't a lot of things she wouldn't do or hasn't done. By the time she meets Ned Renvyle, however, her assets are running distinctly low and she needs a home for herself and her son. Ned Renvyle is an explorer, a writer, a returned Anglo-Irishman now become a farmer. He is also nearly twenty years older than Hannie and on the look-out for a wife. A deal is done, and a marriage made against both their sobered judgements. For Ned the widower, this is a second marriage; for Hannie the inexperienced divorcee and now, by luck, a widow, this is a fifth. It seems a port in a storm, a chance worth taking, but Ned lives on a modest farm deep in West Waterford and the price she has to pay for his name and his home soon seem to high. The novel is set in an apparently uncorrupted rural Ireland which is in fact being changed by forces as explosive as those which Hannie discovers in herself. This move from certainty to uncertainty has consequences and casualities, not least for the young painter, daughter of a local farmer, who is Hannie's nearest neighbour and her son's only confidant.
Plus Ultra by Sean Monaghan (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Ashling goes to Thailand with a hazy agenda for cultural dabbling, sexual intrigue and a tan. There she becomes involved with Pieter, a Dutch Satanist, while ex-war cameraman and struggling author Wayne Steiner becomes fixated on her. On an overland trip to the infamous Full Moon party the three are pursued by Stefan, a man with a mission, and David, a young Irishman who's rapidly becoming trapped in a world where homespun conformity is asphyxiated by perversion and jeopardy.
Playing the Field: Irish Writers on Sport edited by George O'Brien (Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
If you've ever lifted a stick, booted a ball, roared the favourite home, or questioned an opponent's parentage, you are bound to enjoy this book. It is a collection of highly individual views on sport by a select XI of novelists, poets and other literary types. If you want to know why soccer is better than sex, Joseph O'Connor explains it all. Elsewhere Ulick O'Connor encounters Muhammad Ali, Conor O'Callaghan reports on cricketing in Dundalk, Colum McCann profiles the hard men of Manhattan's handball courts, while Mary O'Malley dreams of being a hurler. Plus there's horses, dogs, and a colourful variety of oddballs.
On Raftery's Hill by Marina Carr (Paperback; 6.95 / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
In this last instalment of the monstrous hatreds of people who 'had no summer in their lives', people cursed in a world of distrust and lies. Marina Carr's unique gift betrays the weakness of their needs and aspirations in the face of fate. Though she punctuates the play with moments of hilarious invention, the tragedy of this tale is Classical in scale. As another generation struggles to escape the cycle of depravity visited on one family in the rancid atmosphere of Raftery's Hill, the author's unflinching vision unmasks a world 'so horrible ud it has to be true.'
Cry For the Hot Belly by Kerry Hardie (Paperback; 6.95 IEP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Kerry Hardie's second collection of poems extends the wonder, the 'small deep awa' of its precursor, 'A Furious Place.' To the calm reflection of 'Monaghan Solsctice' and other landscapes 'lit from elsewhere', she introduces a narrative sweep embracing generations and questions of nationality. This collection also recognises the appearance of death in the author's life as a familiar visitor. Her reconciliation with mortality fosters a new freedom in which she discovers a point of arrival.
Oar by Moya Cannon (Paperback; 6.95 IEP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Originally published in 1991, this collection won the Brendan Behan Memorial Award for the best first collection published in Ireland the previous year.
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