The Glorious Heresies, by Lisa McInerney

I had been waiting for this book to come out in paperback for ages, and was delighted to see it make the Bailey's Prize shortlist, as that made it much more likely that I'd actually manage to read it. In short, I had greatly looked forwards to reading this début novel from Irish blogger and all round Sweary Lady Lisa McInerney. But now having finished it, I really don't know what to think.

The story follows various figures of Cork City's criminal underworld. Seedy and grim, TGH paints a picture of a decaying Ireland very different from the Emerald Isle depicted in the tourist literature. This is a damp and resentful Ireland, wounded by its religion, betrayed by its lawmakers and crippled by financial collapse. The book opens with Maureen, the recently retrieved, butter-wouldn't-melt estranged mother of Cork's leading gangster Jimmy Phelan. Maureen harbours her own grudge against her country; forced to relinquish her born out of wedlock son 40 years ago and exiled to London, she's bitter about the disproportionate amount time paid versus the sin committed. She's owed some bad behaviour really, paid on credit. Son Jimmy, raised a pillar of the community by his grandparents, has recently retrieved her from London and had installed her unceremoniously in an empty brothel.

Maureen has just accidentally killed a trespasser in her dingy flat, conking the intruder on the head with a garish religious trinket. Jimmy, called in to make the deceased disappear subcontracts the job to one of his men- one time pal Tony Cusack, a violent drunk, distraught widower and father of 6. This accidental, almost farcical murder has repercussions for all the novel's characters that span the next five years. The deceased is Robbie O'Donovan, half arsed pimp, waster, junkie and general layabout. He will be vaguely sought by his junkie, prostitute girlfriend Georgie for the next couple of years. Tara Duane, the Cusack's next door neighbour is a grotty gossip monger there to poke the embers when it looks like the flames of implication might be dying down and the shabby glue that holds the characters' fates together.

Our main protagonist is Ryan Cusack, 15 years old at the beginning of the book, he is the son of a violent drunk and desperate to avoid turning into one himself. He graduates from small time dealer, to juvenile prison, to more illustrious networks of criminals, swapping the piano for decks along the way. It's his descent from resentful punchbag to actual angry criminal that is perhaps the most arresting of the book's plots. We see the decisions he makes and the lack of real options open to him. His relationship with his girlfriend (from the age of 15-21) is interesting, quite sweet really, that they stay together through prison sentences and various assorted infidelities, but they seem to swing between genuine, affectionate love and blind seething hatred. They show quite nicely how toxic influences will poison even the most stable, loving (if slightly unlikely) relationships. As the years go on, Ryan's field of vision begins to narrow and his options, never exactly myriad to begin with, seem to decrease in quite an alarming, suffocating way.

Though well written and full of sharp wit and head turning turns of phrase, I never really got my eye in for this book, never hit my stride with it properly. I've really struggled to identify what it was that didn't chime. I was determined to plough through, as I'd heard such promising things and been looking forward it reading it for so long! I guess it just didn't work for me. One thing I will say is that I did struggle with the jumbled chronology- perhaps if I'd felt more immersed this would've come more naturally and presented less of a problem. I know the out of sequence narrative is not an especially complex or new idea, but in this case I just found it made the novel that little bit tougher. I guess I just got a bit left behind- McInerney I found be kind of of prone to hyperbole and a couple of times I'd get to the end of a paragraph and realise that I had no idea what I'd just read...

I honestly don't think this is a bad book, not by any means. It's funny, smart and a really fascinating study of the grotty criminal networks that exist in the festering decay of small, neglected cities. I liked the unsympathetic but recognisable cast of characters, I liked that none of them were really looking for redemption- that none of then would recognise redemption if they should see it. I liked seeing a depressing, seedy city filled with grotty characters that know there's no getting out of rock bottom. I'm sure this is a very recognisable world to many readers, and not just to the Irish.

It just didn't work for me and I'm kind of sad about that.

A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews

A Complicated Kindness is a coming-of-age story set in a Canadian Mennonite community, a reclusive and devout Christian sect that's similar in its ways to the more familiar Amish, much to the fascination of the visiting tourists. Mennonites reject the modern world and all its temptations, instead living like 18th century farmers. But with TVs. Sometimes. The town's main industry is the chicken slaughter place and the town's youth look forward to illustrious careers slaughtering chickens before being called up to Heaven in the rapture.

The novel is narrated by 16 year old Nomi in a wry, deadpan style that's very endearing and often funny, in a bittersweet kind of way. She definitely has a sharp sense of the comedic tragedy of her life- musing on the bemused-looking mural of Jesus on the high street, why did their religious founder Menno Simons name his following after his first name? Why does he love damnation so much but isn't bothered about explanation? How is moving one's body to music a sin? Nomi's mother and sister have both left the family, separately and suddenly- but probably for the same reasons. Nomi recalls them in chunks, their reasons for their departures become more and more clear, and sadly inevitable as she offers her memories up to the reader. Her missing family haunt her, but Nomi's father is unable to give up the religion that he loves and that has formed him and Nomi finds herself unable to give up on her father. She is trying her hardest to hold everything together in a ramshackle house by the highway that is falling apart, and with a father with increasingly erratic behaviour. Though previously a devout believer and follower of her religion, Nomi is just beginning to question the lifestyle she has been brought up in in a traditional rebellious angsty teen style.

She and her band of disillusioned teen exiles spend their weekends dressing up as pioneers and churning butter in the mocked-up 'Ye Olden Times' dioramas for tourists, then drive around in pickup trucks, smoking dope, listening to Lou Reed and reading hipster novels and beat poetry. In many ways she's very much an  ordinary teenager- boys, music her parents disapprove of, barely noticeable acts of rebellion. Nomi declares her survival strategy to be using “drugs and my imagination”- her greatest weapons against a town and a religion so desperate to get a foot in the door of Heaven that they forget completely to live. 

I really liked Nomi as a character- she was kidding herself about ever leaving, and she knew that but she lied to herself anyway was a way to cope. She's smart, honest and naturally inquiring, all the things that hardcore religious communities seek to crush, and it's painful to watch her struggle to understand that and then to force herself to live with it. I loved the pitiful but loving relationship she had with her father too, the bond and the burden. They didn't speak much, but understood one another entirely, even if the motives and attitudes were completely different. The scene where she helps him clean up the rubbish at the dump is heartbreaking- this religion seems to have crushed them both.

Though it's not a particularly plot heavy book, it's a fascinating character study of Nomi and her religion, which will be pretty alien to UK readers. It's beautifully written with a mastery of language and image that I haven't seen in a long time. As it's not driven by action, the characters and their lives have to be compelling, as Nomi was a truly arresting narrator. It's a fast and engrossing read all about self-discovery and betrayal, family and escape.