John Evans returns, a year after the success of his debut novel, Pilgrims, with another deeply moving and evocative story, this time that of Brandon Marlowe, a troubled young husband and father struggling against the odds to get through life with a modicum of happiness. Moving from Frankfurt to Dublin and finally back to Brandon's home town of Wexford, the story is woven around the dark centre of his descent into madness, and, more poignantly, his thwarted attempts to escape the hostile fate which dogs him.
Brandon's life is a catalogue of death and abandonment, beginning with the loss of his mother to illness, and continuing, mercilessly, with almost every person who gets close to him. Following desertion by his wife, Brandon and their new-born son become the centre of a household of misfits in Frankfurt, headed by Gerald, a kindly, ageing homosexual. Ironically, it is in this family of outcasts that Brandon briefly experiences a sense of belonging and happiness. However, yet another death prompts his move back to Ireland, where further tragedy and dereliction follow.
What is truly tragic about Brandon's life is that it seems inescapably caught in dark cycles of history and loss which are utterly beyond his control. This sense of circularity is built up in Evans's masterful handling of language and time, as snatches of Brandon's past, present and future commingle to bring the story full circle to its dramatic, harrowing climax and its hero's bitter redemption. This is a beautifully written, if unrelentingly dark book. I occasionally found myself frustrated by Brandon's unerring ability to self-destruct, yet it is his own recognition of this, and of the guilt which lies at the root of it, which make his torment so heartbreakingly believable.
Louise East is an Irish Times journalist, Rosita Boland is a writer and journalist, and Catherine Heaney is the books editor of Image magazine