A Swift Pure Cry

Starred review from March 19, 2007
This debut from an Irish writer opens with an epigraph from Joyce's Ulysses
, setting a high standard that Dowd meets. Set in southern Ireland in 1984 and loosely based on an unsolved crime that rocked the nation, the story begins after the death of Moira Talent, wife of Joe and mother of Shell (short for Michelle), Trix and Jimmy. Joe Talent has buried his grief in a bottle, leaving 15-year-old Shell to run the household. Her father becomes pious after his wife's death, but Shell loses her faith—until young Father Rose joins the parish. She deflects her crush on the priest by taking up with smooth-talking classmate Declan, who gets her pregnant but leaves for America before he knows he's going to be a father. The residents of her claustrophobic rural community avert their eyes as Shell's shape changes, but cannot deny the tragedy that follows. At this point, the tenor of the novel smoothly and inexorably changes from an introspective examination of grief and loss, to a mystery with a thriller's momentum. Dowd's empathy for her characters extends even to Shell's father, a man with "a black shrivelled walnut for a heart." It is no small feat to write a story so heavy with foreboding and both deliver on the palpable sense of dread and concoct a hopeful yet realistic ending. Dowd achieves this in her beautifully realized account of one girl's loss of innocence, and her resilient recovery. Ages 14-up.

March 23, 2009
This novel is set in the small Irish village of Coolbar, where Shell Talent is the neglected daughter of the town drunk. She finds some solace in her secret relationship with Declan, the local altar boy, and in her renewed faith, inspired by the charismatic Father Rose. Then she becomes pregnant. The villagers wonder if her father went too far one night, missing Shell's dead mother. Or was it that new priest? Her daughter is stillborn, but the body of a baby boy who breathed life is also found, and suddenly Shell is facing twin infanticide charges. Why It Is for Us: This is the first of three books by Dowd, now deceased. Each marries a strong sense of place and time with a compelling story. The characters are memorable, almost Joycean, and the dialog flows naturally. By the end of this work, readers will feel they have lived in Coolbar for years. [Originally published in 2007.]

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