Like slogging through a bog at times but worthy... | The Journey Home (James A. Michener Fiction Series) |...

Good, but don't believe the critics | The Journey Home (James A. Michener Fiction Series) | Dermot Bolger

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	• The Journey Home (James A. Michener Fiction Series) Dermot Bolger University of Texas Press, 2008 - 250 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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The Journey Home

Surprising that there's not a review of this book, which was, only a few weeks ago, featured on the cover of the Times Book Review. Deservedly so, in my opinion. Mr. Bolger, of whom I wasn't familiar, can write as well as John Banville, though with less flamboyance. This novel, also published by the University of Texas press, is a gritty look at life in Ireland as seen through the eyes of a young man. A glimpse of the end is shown on the first page; flashbacks are skillfully woven throughout. Hano, we eventually learn, is abused by an older man. He later loses his best friend. A thriller of sorts, since murder is involved. Darkly sad most of the time, but also intensely vivid in its descriptions of people and places, the part of Ireland tourist rarely see. Well worth reading.

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Like slogging through a bog at times but worthy...

The story is set in Dublin during its dark days in the 1980's (high unemployment, high crime, mass exodus, etc). There are three main characters in the story: Francis Hanrahan ("Hano" or "Francy"), Seamus ("Shay") and Cait ("Katie"). Hano, 19 years old, is befriended by Shay at his first job. Shay is 21 - he is fearless, confident and popular - he shows Hano the way about the office and town. Hano looks up to Shay as he would an older brother and best friend. Katie, 16, a troubled teenager who lost her parents - and is a drug addict - also comes under Shay's spell and is a key player in the story line.

I wish someone had explained to me upfront that the story is told from 3 different vantage points:

1) Hano and Katie on the Run: Shay is dead. Hano and Katie are on the run from the authorities (and the mob?) through Ireland after Hano commits a serious crime. Story is told in the third person.

2) Shay's ghost speaking to Katie (this is all in italics)

3) Hano speaks of his life and his relationship with his family, Shay and Katie.

The story starts in the middle and zig zags backward and forward (without much notice) between the three story lines. The third track (Hano speaking of his life) is by far the most engaging. I found the other story lines in track 1 and 2 to bring environmental context to the plot but add murkiness and confusion. (Track 3 was that good and outweighed rather sluggish Tracks 1 and 2.)

You are "treated" to a visually depicted dark side of humanity in this novel - including but not limited to: heavy drinking, bare knuckled fist fights for sport with unwilling participants, drug fueled parties, human degradation, poverty, physical and sexual violence, corruption by police and politicians, and the fruits of high employment - all painting a picture of desperation/suffocation and frightening hopelessness.

Yet, while everyone is looking to flee Dublin, they can't seem to leave it behind -- as the promised land in Europe and/or America leaves them feeling empty and yearning for the homeland (and what "it was" as opposed to "what it has become"). As Bolger writes: "Home was not the place where you were born but the place you created for yourself, where you did not need to explain, where you finally became what you were."

This book will likely not appeal to the casual reader looking for a light and breezy page turner - this is another book assigned to you by your college professor in your "Advanced Literature" class......deep, introspective, beautifully written and reflecting the environment of the times.

My ratings scheme with 10 being high grade:

Page Turner: 6.5 (Dense, thick, dark and gloomy)
Memorable: 10
Character Development: 8
Live the Story: 9
Flow / Easy to Follow: 4

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Good, but don't believe the critics

Bolger writes well. Sometimes he writes too well. Take the very first paragraph of the book and you'll come across not one but two strong, beautiful metaphors. Only they demand to be read twice, so you read them twice, then wonder at their proximity and then worry that things are going to be moving rather slowly. On the whole, they don't. Part of the book is about a couple on the run from an unnamed crime, part a poetic confession from beyond the grave and part an account of how it all came about. Of the three separate tales, only the latter is truly riveting. The description of Hano and Shay's friendship is spot-on, revelling in its aimlessness, energy and displacement. Dublin comes alive and seems at odds with the other parts of Ireland that Bolger displays. It's Ireland on the move, only its inhabitants haven't figured out where yet. The Old Ireland, the green sod, is gone. The Celtic Tiger hasn't yet arrived and that's what makes this novel, written in 1990, amazingly prescient. Its only weakness comes from the dialogue placed in the mouth of sixteen year old Katie, who never rises above being a two dimensional mouthpiece for the author. She stops in the middle of her escape, again and again, to deliver thoughtful, wordy descriptions of her place, or lack thereof, in the world. There's much to be impressed with and 'THe Journey Home' is worth the read, but this is a book with a distracting streak of purple prose and a single character bent on undermining the solidity of those who share the page.

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Young Francis Hanrahan dreams desperately of a life different from that of his country-born, suburban-living parents. On his first day at his first job Francis makes his first real friend. Shay, a would-be older brother, introduces "Hano" to Dublin's appealingly seedy after-hours bars and drug-fueled parties. They are joined by Cait, a troubled teenager who spends her days in a stupor. But the noir thrills of underground Dublin cannot conceal the unemployment, corruption, and violence strangling the city. The Plunkett brothers, masters of "the subtle everyday corruption on which a dynasty was built" will use the friends?with tragic results.

Torn between his friends, his family, and his own ideals, Hano ultimately falls victim to these powerful forces and commits a heinous crime. He flees through the countryside with Cait, wondering, as he narrates the events that set him on this path, if there is a home at the end of it.

Controversial for its gritty portrait of Dublin in the 1980s, The Journey Home is Dermot Bolger's unflinching look at the personal cost of social progress, and those, innocent or not, lost during the journey.

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