Kala

An everyday tale of jolly irish folk knocking back Guinness and cracking jokes down at the pub - NOT.

Yet another “outside my comfort zone” read for my local book club that I’m glad to have encountered. Not that it was a particularly fun read - another one of those novels which doesn’t have any clear “heroes”, just protogonanists, none of whom really come of it particularly well but all of whom are very well drawn and deeply human.

At heart, a story that mixes events from two periods - six friends growing up together in a small Irish town on the Atlantic coast; and three of them re-connecting (of sorts) 15 or so years later. In the meantime, of the original six one is dead, one maimed, one emigrated, one lost touch, one is a successful rock star and the title character disappeared in 2003.

Over the course of just one long weekend a huge amount of history is uncovered and much happens to three re-united friends and those around them (almost all of it bad). There’s a fantastic feeling of place, enormously aided by the clever use of irish vernacular that doesn’t seem forced and is perfectly understandable, even if you don’t know what “Tayto’s” are. The place, Kinlough, is well drawn, indeed the story is claustrophobically enclosed by the town, apart from a brief excursion to Dublin all the action in both time periods is all within the town and its immediate environs and the limited number of characters can appear from around any corner.

A fantastic first novel, a great piece of writing but don’t expect anything uplifting from reading it, in fact I almost felt a bit grubby afterwards, it was that immersive.