The Temporary Gentleman

Narrator Gerard Doyle's sonorous voice provides the perfect complement to Sebastian Barry's story of an Irishman who was awarded the status of "temporary gentleman" along with his commission in the British Army during WWII. Here he looks back on his life from the vantage point of a solo existence in Ghana in 1957. Barry's lyrical writing is in striking contrast to the brutal life lived by his main character, Jack McNulty, a man whose gambling debts and inattention to his family destroyed the spirit of his lovely wife. Doyle's narration highlights both the peaks and valleys of McNulty's tumultuous life, making this a powerful listening experience. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

February 24, 2014
The latest novel from Barry (The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty) is a lyrical but ironic period story. Jack McNulty (Eneas’s younger brother), of Sligo, Ireland, first appears during WWII, as a soldier in Britain’s army, en route to Africa and admiring a peaceful sea, moments before a submarine torpedoes his ship. When we next see him, in 1957, Jack is living in self-imposed exile in Ghana, recalling his days as a soldier and civil servant, and as a suitor, lover, and husband to the haunting and haunted Mai Kirwan. Jack courts Mai avidly; then, after they marry, he gambles away her inheritance and allows creditors to take their house. Having left his two daughters in Ireland, Jack finds a close companion in Ghana: his houseboy, Tom Quaye. Jack must flee the country, however, after a drunken night out with Tom that ends in violence. Even while preparing to leave, Jack’s thoughts return to the past: helping his mother research their family’s history, defusing unexploded German bombs in England, and working as both a U.N. observer and a gunrunner in Africa. With this complex portrait of a man rooted in his hometown but drawn into a wider warring world, Barry again proves himself a prose artist and a skilled navigator of the rocky shoals of modern morality and Irish heritage.