Dark Lies the Island

Starred review from July 1, 2013
There are a lot of pleasures to be had in Barry’s short story collection. First, there’s his way with language—a bent form of Irish that makes the most mundane exchange, like those of the mileage-obsessed locals at the hotel bar in “Fjord of Killary,” somehow hilarious. Then there’s the pleasure of safely spending time in the company of people you might well cross the street to avoid, like the Mullaney brothers in “White Hitatchi,” who are well-known to the local constabulary, or the law-abiding but big, sweaty, and, as their beer-tasting excursion extends, presumably loud, friends of “Beer Trip to Llandudno.” Whether they did well in the high-flying Celtic Tiger years, or, more likely, missed out entirely, whether in Ireland or part of the vast Irish diaspora, Barry’s characters tend to be aware of both the exact alcohol content of their chosen beverages and the likelihood that the road they’re on isn’t leading anywhere good. Though “Dark Lies the Island”—one of the few stories told from a female point of view—isn’t the collection’s strongest, it does offer the perfect title overall: the island and its inhabitants aren’t doing well, and Barry is a master at showing both the darkness and the piercing moments of humor and self-knowledge that now and then penetrate it.

April 1, 2013
In his latest, Irish author Barry (City of Bohane, 2011, etc.) offers 10 pieces of literary fiction. A postmodern lens reflects youthful ineptness in "Across the Rooftops." In "Wifey Redux," perhaps the collection's best story, Saoirse, "blonde and wispily slight with a delicate, bone-china complexion," marries, births Ellie and turns to Pinot Grigio, while her dutiful husband becomes consumed by their daughter's beauty and her sex-obsessed suitors. A blocked poet turned innkeeper herds horny Belarus staff and droning, alcoholic locals in "Fjord of Killary" until, epiphany-flooded, "I felt a new, quiet ecstasy take hold. The gloom of youth had at last lifted." In "A Cruelty," a boy/man/child, autistic perhaps, time-obsessed, fixated on lunch-pack Chocolate Goldgrains, is accosted by a bully, perhaps a rapist, certainly "hyena," his safely circumscribed world forever fractured. Later, a sad group of ale fanciers makes a humorous and melancholy "Beer Trip to Llandudno." Irish lyricism shines throughout the collection. "Ernestine and Kit" opens so--"the world was fat on the blood of summer"--but relates a tale as black as a witch's heart. A kitchen steward, "black mass of backcombed hair and a graveyard pallor," fumbles into a double-dealing bombing plot in "The Mainland Campaign." A broken lover laments in "Wistful England," and Jameson whiskey-loving "Doctor Sot" finds drunken perceptions reflected by psychotic Mag, a traveler. An on-the-run drug dealer confronts the devil, twisted overseer of two sisters, eight wild children and chained feral dogs in "The Girls and the Dogs." A rattletrap "White Hitachi" van is home to Patrick, incompetent thief, intent upon saving his brother from "Castlerea prison, or the secure ward at the madhouse (many a Mullaney had bothered the same walls)." The title story is penultimate, a young artist, a cutter, from a fractured family seeks west Ireland solace. "Berlin Arkonaplatz--My Lesbian Summer" concludes the collection, Irish writer Patrick entrapped and enlightened by bohemian Silvija, "beautiful, foul-mouthed and inviolate." Winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, Barry writes stories that are character-driven, archetypical yet magnetic, pushing toward realism's edge where genre becomes irrelevant.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 15, 2013

Barry offers a second story collection that offers all the best qualities of his IMPAC award-winning debut novel, City of Bohane--the dark humor, apt characterization, and sharply condensed emotion, so well contained by the beautiful sentences. Some of the stories artfully offer whole communities. In "Fjord of Killary," for instance, a narrator full of romantic idealism and the desire to remake himself has bought an old hotel in the wet west of Ireland and now finds that he despises the very rag with which he mops the bar. He senses that he's despised in turn by the crusty, exasperating locals, who think he acts superior. But during a particularly bad storm, as the water rises dangerously, the regulars in the bar explode into a round of dancing, and the whole story captures the darkness and exuberance of the Irish spirit. Other stories are fine portraits, as in "Across the Rooftops," which tenderly depicts a shy young man attempting a first kiss. VERDICT Highly recommended for lovers of short stories, Irish literature, and good reading generally.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2013
Young as he is, Barry is already pushing a wheelbarrow of prizes stacked high with expectations. His first novel, City of Bohane (2012), received rapturous reviews and was a New York Times Notable Book. He has also been awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the 2011 Author's Club Best First Novel Award, and a story from this collection won the Sunday Times Short Story Award. As the title suggests, the stories are full of starry skies and scarred and scary types. Barry's tales feature bogs and dogs, booze and lager, drugs and suffering. One character remarks, I was finding out how carelessly life might be lived. Several of the denizens of this dark Ireland live very carelessly indeed, as do those in exile in England. The writing is spectacular, alternately stately and hurried, occasionally clipped but never languid, steeped in the vernacular but never lacking precision, and very often pulsing with the rhythm of iambic pentameter. Smashing, compulsively readable stuff: Barry will be a household name, and soon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)