The Visitors

Starred review from December 9, 2013
Taken as a whole, this slow-burner from O’Keeffe (The Hill Road) delivers a devastating emotional wallop. Winner of the 2006 Story Prize, O’Keeffe has turned from tales of those who stayed in Ireland to one about those who left. The trajectory of expat protagonist James Dwyer is not dissimilar to O’Keeffe’s own journey from Ireland to America. As the novel opens in the States, Jimmy is visited by an indigent man who carries a message from Jimmy’s past. The novel is heedless of time, meandering back and forth through Jimmy’s life and the lives of his forbears to bring the reader up to speed about the import of the message, which turns out to be from Jimmy’s childhood nemesis, Kevin Lyons. We learn, gradually, of the inextricable bonds between the Lyons family and the Dwyers back in County Limerick, about the affairs and tragedies of aunts, fathers, brothers, sisters, and namesakes. It is not until Jimmy begins to read the diary left behind by Kevin’s dad, Michael, that the reader becomes aware that the author is up to something quite remarkable. The very air Jimmy breathes seems rife with memory—not only his, but his family’s—pregnant with the secrets of those who went before him. By the time all is revealed, the reader is captivated and moved.

Starred review from February 1, 2014
A young Irishman immigrates to the States and finds he can't escape family and friends--or enemies. James Dwyer narrates the story, from his growing up in rural Ireland to his job in a Dublin pub to his move to the States, working as a housepainter and as a baker. The drama in his life primarily involves family and his family's acquaintances. His father is a plainspoken farmer, and James definitively does not want to follow in his dad's vocational footsteps. His father's best friend is Michael Lyons, and it's the Lyons family with whom James' life gets most intertwined. Michael's son Kevin is a few years older than James and something of a bully as they're growing up. While an adolescent, James witnesses a sexual act between Kevin and James' sister Tess, and later, love relationships get even more complicated when James falls in love with Kevin's sister Una. The novel opens mysteriously when an old man named Walter knocks on James' door in Ann Arbor, claims to have seen a woman lying in the street and uses that as an opening to start a conversation with James. We find out that this is no chance encounter but rather that Walter is actually a messenger from Kevin, now living in upstate New York and doing well financially by buying houses, fixing them up and then reselling them at an impressive profit. James reluctantly makes the trip to see Kevin, who wants James to read Michael's old journals, which contain revelations about both families. O'Keeffe closely observes human interactions and conveys his narrative largely through glistening dialogue that has the feel of Celtic folk poetry.

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January 1, 2014

Story Prize winner O'Keeffe's first novel after The Hill Road tells the story of two Irish families, the Dwyers and the Lyons, and how the lives of the children especially become entangled, more by proximity than by passion. As the children scatter abroad to earn their living, their connections become tenuous but remain as an unrelenting itch in the mind of Jimmy Dwyer, the narrator. Jimmy is born in the rural county Limerick, moves to Dublin as a teenager, and finally settles in Ann Arbor, MI. He evokes the frustration of poverty, rural life, and puberty and depicts the inconsistency of moral convictions--those of his community as well as his own. When an unexpected reunion with his childhood friend Kevin Lyons and new information about the reality of the past becomes available, Jimmy's perspective changes. VERDICT O'Keeffe paints a picture of self-centered introspection, Irish gloom, and the ironic repetition of events from generation to generation that will appeal to most fiction readers.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
Reminiscent of his work in The Hill Road (2005), O'Keeffe's second book flits easily through time and space to tell the story of two Irish families linked intimately over several generations. Leaving behind his family's farm in rural Ireland, James Dwyer travels first to Dublin, then to Boston, arriving finally at school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There he receives an invitation to visit a childhood neighbor, Kevin Lyons, now living in New York. James never liked Kevin and is determined to decline the request, but their fathers were best friends, and they are further linked through romantic entanglements with each other's siblings. Ultimately, James cannot deny the invitation, and the meeting only serves to bind the two together more firmly through shared memories and tragedy. By exploring the characters' intertwined lives, O'Keeffe shows that we are the sum of our past experiences but that even the same history tells a different story for each of us. He weaves a poignant tale of hope and loss that is colorful and engaging in its detail and highly recommended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)