Safe Return Doubtful

It takes a special writer to make a story of assisted suicide and the 2008 recession engaging and witty, but that is exactly what Hughes has pulled off in this memorable novel.
Its about a Roscommon farming family; brothers Cormac and Doharty ‘Hart’ Black and their father, the Chief, who is dying from terminal cancer. All have worked themselves to the bone to pay off debts in the wake of poor financial investments during the Celtic Tiger.
How can these things make you smile? The answer lies is the autheticity of the language Hughes uses. This strength, is also to a degree the novel’s weakness, in that it takes some getting into. Having finished, I want to go back and read the first half again because I think I would get more out of it.
The plot is of less importance, in fact the tension she has worked so hard to create falls apart somewhat in the last chapters, at the expense of flashbacks and anecdotes; the father’s posthumous presence eclipses the proceedings of the courtroom – these character interactions are why the novel works so well.
All in all, it is a sharp and quick-witted depiction of fatherhood and pathos, one that is bravely told and tenderly constructed.

It will certainly feature as one of my best books of the year, which could make it a hat-trick for Irish writers, following on from Kevin Barry and Jess Kidd in the last two years.

Here’s a snippet..

..a Lego-headed fella with hooded eyes, enjoying the baton swinging by his hip, and a disconsolate looking middle-aged ban-garda with a few red highlights poking out under her cap and a large continuous bosom and stomach that was kept at bay by her anti-stab vest.