Old God's Time

My guilty reading pleasure is gritty crime novels, and it is a singular pleasure to come across one so beautifully written and constructed that there is nothing to feel guilty about. But maybe this isn't even a crime novel?

Tom Kettle is a retired detective who has spent the first 9 months after leaving his job peacefully sitting in a wicker chair smoking cigarillos and looking out at Dublin Bay. He's alone. His wife, daughter, and son are dead from various tragic events during his life, but he thinks he might be coming to terms with his losses. Until two detectives pound on his door one evening and reopen some very old wounds that force him to dig deep into his past and struggle with how much he is going to share and with whom. Relationships with the people in his life suddenly become important in a way that they weren't when he was working and needed to keep distant and detached.

Child abuse by Irish priests figures in this story, with the historical figure of Archbishop McQuaid and his refusal to pursue allegations against some of his priests as a backdrop. So yes, there is crime in this book, but much more important are the impacts of love and loss and old, indefensible actions of the Irish Catholic Church on a retired, grieving detective.

This is my first Barry novel, and the writing often feels like sleight of hand. The book moves back and forth in time, and melds hallucinatory happenings in Kettle's mind with the story's action so deftly that it is hard to separate them. This creates a cryptic, otherworldly mood. It's really well done and a bit creepy.

I like this book a lot, don't feel a bit guilty, and now have eight other Sebastian Barry books going on my ever expanding to read list. My only criticism is that although his similes and metaphors are mostly gorgeous, they seem laid on a bit thick at times and can feel overworked.

TW: child abuse within the church, pedophilia

I don’t use trigger words lightly. My reading is never dictated by content warnings and the like, but this is one of the very few books I’ve read that I want to make very clear up front isn’t for everyone. It isn’t even for me, as you can tell from my rating.

Tom Kettle is a retired policeman who is visited by some of his former colleagues on the force about a death that had occurred when Tom was on the force. Evidently new evidence had come to light, and they wanted Tom’s opinion on the matter, as it had been a matter he was very involved in. The brief visit stirs memories loose, and Tom begins to spiral into confusing the past with the present. We’re present as he relives memories he had buried for years, and leaves you questioning throughout the book whether what’s happening is actually happening, a figment of Tom’s imagination, or some twisting of what actually occurred into something more.

The book is very dark, very bleak, and Tom’s story is told entirely from his point of view, stream of consciousness style. No punches are pulled, and every last dark crevice in Tom’s memory is revealed to us as the reader. Specifically related to the TWs mentioned above, no mystery is made of what happened, and the language used is incredibly hard to read and very graphic. Spoilers here: Throughout the book, Tom is very much an unreliable narrator. It’s clear he’s going through some form of dementia or trauma from having buried the matter so deep, and it shows in how he confuses reality with the past often. We dip back and forth between past and present so much, it becomes a question as to who really did the deed and killed the priest, which was my (only?) favorite part of the book.

I can’t rate this higher because of the stream of consciousness style of writing. Every thought and mental rabbit hole Tom has is on display for the reader, and I mentally checked out in more than one spot as he went on various mental wool gathering expeditions. Maybe that’s compelling to other people (clearly, based on the rating here), but it just isn’t for me. My brain serves up inane chatter all day, every day. I don’t need a book for that. It’s clear the writer is very good at his craft, but I couldn’t keep interest for very long when we started meandering away from the main thread of the story. I also don’t really know who I’d look in the face and recommend this book to. I work in a library and make a career out of recommending books I think patrons would like, and I can’t imagine I’d ever recommend a book circling around the abuse of a child laid this bare for the reader to experience.

So, I guess, give it a go if you like stream of consciousness writing, a single, unreliable point of view, and an incredibly dark, sad story about a man and his trauma.