Trespasses: A Novel

One niggle..Mummy !! nobody in Ireland would use this word, they say Mammy. I enjoyed this very much, lost a lot of sleep over it. Worth every penny. I honestly felt I was in the bar/ house/ streets with them. Heartbreaking what people had to live with. ( and we know it was a fact)

I grew up 20 miles and 20 years away from Cushla and this book brought me more clarity about my early life in conflict era Northern Ireland, class, sexuality, childhood and older men than all the age and therapy I’ve lived. It is perfection. My only criticism I will never write anything as good as this as a professional writer. Nor will I be as interesting an interviewee as Lousie Kennedy. I saw her talk at Cuirt and bought the book solely off the back of it and not only is it one of the best books I’ve ever read, it got me to go back to Northern Ireland. I swore I’d never set foot in the place again but that’s how powerful the book is. I went home twice thanks to it. Absolutely outstanding.

Oh my goodness. I loved this book and couldn’t put it down but having just finished the final page I’m in floods of tears. What a hauntingly beautiful but brutal story of the troubles in Ireland at this time. I loved the strong character of Cushla and little Davy was really brought to life by the author. Absolutely outstanding and a book you will not forget.

Cushla is a teacher in a catholic primary school in a “garrison town” in Northern Ireland in 1972 (referenced by Mary Peters’ gold medal in Munich. When not at her day job, she helps at the family bar, run by her brother Eamonn, or looks after her alcoholic mother, Gina. The regulars are mainly protestants, including soldiers. Cushla’s world is changed completely when she notices, and is noticed by, Michael, a lawyer from her mother’s generation. The story plays out as a set of complex and intertwined relationships, with the affair between Cushla and the married Michael at its centre. From the start it seems doomed, as her increasing love for Michael (and his for her) conflicts with the knowledge that she is not the first, and that he is extremely unlikely to leave his wife. Almost as important is Cushla’s relationship with Davey, a little boy in one of her classes. He comes from a deprived background, with things made worse by his father suffering a punishment beating at the hands of the paramilitaries. Taking Davey under her wing brings her into conflict with the school authorities, the headmaster and the slightly stereotypical priest. The relationships are beautifully portrayed as Cushla must tread warily across multiple battlefields, the conflict between Gina and Eamonn’s aspirational wife, the struggle of being catholics in at a predominantly protestant area, keeping catholicism out of overt public notice in the bar, learning to live with Michael’s liberal, middle class, friends. Even though I liked and enjoyed Trespasses I did, at times find it difficult to fully engage. I didn’t find it difficult to put down, and wasn’t always eager to pick it up. I think that is probably mainly down to the book often feeling like a series of vignettes, evocatively drawn, but not necessarily creating narrative momentum. That said, the story becomes a lot stronger as it reaches its denouement and the aftermath. My biggest complaint about the book is that it is yet another which adopts the currently fashionable affectation of not having any quotation marks. I guess that the thinking behind this might be to create more flowing prose, and it can work well when skilfully handled, Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other comes to mind. In most cases, including this one, for me it is an alienating, fourth wall breaking device. I find myself taken out of the story if I have to stop to work out who, if anyone is speaking. To finish with the positive, i found myself fully empathising with and relating to Cushla, a loving and nurturing everywoman adrift in a world of male power and violence. Four stars if it was properly punctuated.