Proxopera is a relentless novella, set in the Troubles in Northern Ireland and told at a furious pace. It is ostansibly about a family held hostage by three IRA members while one of them is told to drive a bomb into the local town.

On a subtler level it speaks to the senselessness of violence, winding and weaving through snippets of old stories remembered by the central character. Brutal, poetic, and sometimes darkly funny, it is a harsh reminder of the violence of the near past in Northern Ireland.