No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien
By Anthony Cronin
New Island, €16.95
This is an affectionate and forgiving portrait of Ireland's foremost, beloved scoffer; the tale of one of the most gleeful and unashamed noms de guerre to ring a typewriter's bell. Cronin the biographer has the same generosity of spirit he showed many a time to the socially-stunted Flann O'Brien during their pint sessions in the back snug of McDaid's pub (known to their coterie as "the intensive care unit"). As a friend and contemporary, Cronin was well situated to write this enjoyable and satisfying book. He doesn't water down O'Nolan's spiky personality, and strips away any writerly disguises or "Celtic twilight"; he measures the talent to the output, and wonders if it was all for the best in the end, considering the personal cost of the "artist's life" to the man whose cheques of courage and conviction usually bounced. In the end, Cronin remains fond of O'Brien, as any reader will, and makes sure no harm comes to him (no Freudian rummaging through Flann's drawers) before helping him on his final journey home, and putting him safely and contentedly to bed. For Flannophiles, this biography is your only man. – NJ McGarrigle
Little Faith
By Nickolas Butler
Faber & Faber, £12.99
"How can it all be random, chance, a beautiful cosmic accident?" In this tender, sorrowful novel Lyle Hovde is growing old, asking himself the big questions of existence living a small, quiet life in rural Wisconsin with his wife Peg. Lyle has moved away from his faith, but his daughter Shiloh has become increasingly devout; she is now in a destructive relationship with Steven, a pastor who has as much religious zeal as Lyle has doubts. Lyle's relationship with his six-year-old grandson Isaac is threatened as Steven's tyrannical evangelism throws an ominous shadow. Reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout, Butler draws characters you fall in love with almost immediately, through their flaws, their losses, their brokenness; there is an exceptional sense of place, the orchards and seasonal work adding to an acute awareness of time. Like the best writing, it doesn't call attention to itself but has a poetry all of its own. This is a profound book, that for all its sadness is uplifting: "It is a dream, a miraculous dream, surely, to have been alive at all." – Ruth McKee
