Heart Be At Peace by Donal Ryan

If my blogging has been marked by anything this year, it is been debut authors,  it I’ve also read a number of books by Irish writers.  Ryan seems to be popular, the writing is efficient enough.  It seems to be a state of the nation novel, which is a trend in Irish fiction as the country itself sails into uncharted waters.  

It seems, at times to be an indentikit of what an Irish novel looks like in 2024 (the first person narrative of Orla Mackay’s Mouthing), the reflection of Irish history to predict it’s future (Niamh Mulvey’s The Ammendments, one of the best novels this year).  It’s also got some of Roddy Doyle’s sardonic wit and a little hint of Anne Enright’s Kubrickian aloofness. 

The narrative, however seems loose, disconnected.  There’s the odd current of darker waters, but it’s a short novel, in a year of short novels; that doesn’t always have the literary weight that it’s aiming for. It’s published by Random House on 8th August and I thank them for a preview copy.   #heartbeatpeace.