In the Province of Saints: A Novel

by Thomas O'Malley

Overview

O'Malley sets a haunting local mystery against the tense backdrop of a country tormented by bloodshed and deep schisms.

In the tradition of Seamus Deane and John McGahern, a stirring, beautifully written, but unsentimental portrait of an Irish boyhood.

Thomas O'Malley's work has appeared in literary journals such as "Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Shenandoah, Gulf Stream, and "Blue Mesa Review".

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316110396
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/24/2005
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Thomas O'Malley is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and currently teaches on the faculty of creative writing at Dartmouth College. He lives in the Boston area.

Editorial Reviews

During one of many bleak moments in his adolescence, Michael describes "all of us squinting through the glass, searching the dark churning horizon for some faint promise of light." O'Malley never magnifies that faint promise, but the beauty of his writing keeps the search in tight focus. With this debut novel, he makes a striking addition to what seems to be an ever-expanding collection of masterpieces about Ireland's Troubles -- perhaps the only consolation to rise from the country's modern agony.
— The Washington Post

Ron Charles

There is much talk of rain, and ghosts, and the smell of dung, and the reader feels the claustrophobia and hopelessness that coexist with the wild beauty of the land. As Michael grows up, he comes to terms with his family's secrets, both personal and political. In the end we know that he, too, will leave Ireland for good. A familiar Irish song, but the words will break your heart.
— The New York Times

Elsa Dixler

Even in a field crowded by the wake of Angela's Ashes, this first novel of a hardscrabble Irish childhood stands out for its eloquence and its bleakness. In rural Slievecorragh in 1976, young, poor Michael McDonagh looks on after the death of neighbor Mag Delacey, whose affair with Michael's father is much whispered-about. While Michael's father searches for work in the States, his cancer-stricken mother rarely leaves the house, leaving Michael to keep company with his hard-drinking uncles as they eke a living from farm work and illegal fishing. The 1981 IRA hunger strikes loom over Michael's adolescence, while on a daily basis a low-level class warfare persists between the merely poor and the truly destitute. Teenage Michael begins an obviously doomed relationship with Mag's daughter Cait, making his hopeful moments all the more poignant. O'Malley, who grew up in Ireland and England, and now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., heightens his metaphors to match Michael's unrelentingly grim world ("the ball of wool unraveled on the floor like a mealy maggot from a rotten apple") and his sentences have a judicious clarity even as they twist into gnarled shapes; they carry O'Malley's characters though their incomprehension with poise and assurance. Agent, Richard Abate at ICM. (Aug. 24) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Young Michael McDonagh narrates O'Malley's debut, a brilliant coming-of-age story set against the Irish Republican struggles of 1976 to 1981, when the notorious "criminalisation" policies against its followers in Northern Ireland culminated in the tragic hunger strikes led by Bobby Sands. Yearning to redeem those he loves, Michael justifies the temptation to criminalize himself as the sacrifice demanded by his personal ghosts: an adulterous father who flees to America, a mother driven to madness by cancer and rejection, and uncles who smuggle weapons and eventually kill for the cause. The family's drama unfolds in County Wexford, southeast of Dublin, and corresponds with the sectarian violence occurring in the North; Michael's family, in essence, comes to represent a nation historically, emotionally, and spiritually linked to the "troubles." Rich with unforgettable symbols and episodes, this tale renders Michael's life in earthy prose that affirms the curative powers of memory and love. A worthy successor to Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark, Bernard MacLaverty's Cal, and Dermot Healy's A Goat's Song; highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Greg Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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