Product Description
After jetting around the world, Stephen Rea left Belfast to settle in New Orleans in 2004. Life in the Deep South proved to be startlingly different from that in Northern Ireland, and Rea struggled to find an outlet for his love of soccer. Before long, the Ulsterman stumbled upon Finn McCool's pub and the wonderfully eccentric, international crowd that gathers there to watch European football games.

Frank "the Tank," the pot-growing Dutch national; Dave "the Rave" Ashton, a forty-six-year-old physiotherapist from Manchester dubbed "the world's oldest teenager"; and Benji Haswell, a former political activist from South Africa, are three of the rare and vibrant characters who populated the pub's stools. Soon Rea, along with this idiosyncratic mix of locals and ex-pat regulars, formed a pub soccer team, joined a league, and started dreaming of victory.

On August 28, 2005, with former pro footballer Scottish Steve "Macca" McAnespie as their coach, members of the team sat in the pub discussing their upcoming match. The next day, Hurricane Katrina enveloped the Gulf Coast, scattering Rea and his teammates around the world in seek of shelter and stability.

This luminous, gripping work follows the author and Finn regulars as they rebuild their lives and their team. With a masterful combination of dry humor and astute profundity, Rea reflects on his adopted city, providing powerful insight into the lives of the foreign-born and minority groups that stayed behind during Katrina due to the little they had to lose. Filled with equally hilarious and sobering anecdotes and no shortage of good soccer stories, Rea seamlessly weaves his experiences alongside his teammates' harrowing survival stories. A breathtaking and incredible debut celebrating camaraderie, sportsmanship, and survival, "Finn McCool's Football Club" stands out as a haunting and powerful memoir filled with laughter, loss, astonishment, and of course, soccer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (80)

A Major Disappoinment
I was very excited when I ordered this book from Amazon as it promised a combination of things I love- an Irish pub, soccer, history, and a comeback against overwhelming odds.With the sort of reviews I had never seen on Amazon- 73 out of 74 rated it as 5 stars- I knew I had a 'can't miss" book in "Finn McCool's".
Sadly, I was very disappointed.I really tried hard to like this book but it never clicked.I found the story disjointed and meandering.I never got a real feel for the characters who frequented Finn's and so it was hard to get attached to them.You really need a scorecard to tell who is who. The author will briefly introduce a Finn's regular/team member and then 60 pages later bring up the person again by first name like he's an old friend of ours (the reader's). Actually, you have to go back and remind yourself just who this person is.
A few other irritating things:
1. Rea frequently identifies- correctly- what he sees as racism, particularly against African Americans, and then becomes Exh B by himself stereotyping Hispanics at several points in the book.
2.His exasperation as he describes trying to get sports bars in the U.S to put on Premier League soccer matches gets tiring.An American trying to do the same in England- prodding a bartender in a London pub to switch one of the TVs to a New Orleans Saints game when Manchester United is playing Chelsea- would be labelled an Ugly American.
3. His comments on the United States in general I found very sophomoric. I have no problem with a writer making observations on his adopted country- I just found that Rea was not very perceptive or insightful.
4. And, yes, I get it that his wife is always cold but do you have to beat us over the head with that little tidbit?
5. and, finally, we can handle the F word.You can spell it out instead of using the F_ _ k.

I am obviously am in the minority as 99% of the readers loved the book.

I did enjoy the first hand accounts by the survivors of Katrina.

Beyond Futbol
Stephen Rae's "Finn McCool's Footbal Club" is simply a fantastic read! It covers the scope of human emotion as one deals with the trivial pursuit(pre-Katrina) of a proper run on the pitch or a pint in an approachable pub(not necessarily in that order) to the fragility and adversity of life and the ability of a community to make each other whole again. One does not have to be a futbol fan to appreciate Stephen Rae's literary offering.

Well balanced with humor and reality...great memoir!
I bought this as a souvenir for my husband on a vacation (he loves a good book more than t-shirts).The author was sitting on the steps of my favorite Florida bookstore signing copies of his book.When he gave me a brief summary of the book, I grabbed one immediately because it sounded like something my husband would like.(He is a soccer guy, a minority in the U.S.)Anyways, when I finished the books I'd brought along for myself, I started reading his souvenir.So glad I did.You don't have to be a soccer fan to enjoy Stephen Rea's wit as he talks about getting used to the U.S., an eccentric, lively, and loveable city, his quest to see soccer games on T.V., and hear how they all managed through and after Hurricane Katrina.Great Book!

FMFC
Great story about coming to America, playing soccer, and surviving a devastating natural disaster.Being a Louisiana native & a soccer player/fan, this story hit home.

If you are ever in New Orleans, visit the pub Finn McCool's.The author may even be there!

Touching and funny read.
Mr Rea has managed to produce a rare book; both touching and funny. Especially for those of us that lived through Katrina. And don't worry, it's not all about soccer. ... Read more

Product Description
Illustrated with photographs from their personal albums and movie stills, a collection of interviews with six top actors of Irish descent--Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan, Stephen Rea, Aidan Quinn, Patrick Bergin--reveals their thoughts about their work, their lives, and their heritage. Original. IP. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Worthwhile Profile of Hollywood's Leading Irishmen
_Hollywood Irish_ is a fantastic collection of interviews and photographs of six handsome and talented actors: Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn and Patrick Bergin. The simple introduction provided by Áine O'Connor sets the mood for the rest of the book well. As she mentions, the interviews do reveal insightful, private information: "Liam Neeson reveals how he considered leaving acting and how he found the confidence to continue; Pierce Brosnan, simply and openly, shares the painful story of his wife Cassie's death; Stephen Rea discusses the relationship between acting and politics; Aidan Quinn talks about the Irish identity and its many paradoxes; Patrick Bergin reveals the temptations of an actor's life and the difficulties of doing love scenes; Gabriel Byrne tells us about the risks and illusions that surround fame." In a nutshell, that's the book. Each actor discusses his beginnings, both in life and as an actor. Each discusses, in some capacity, how being Irish has impacted him. Each actor's profile comes with several b/w photos from childhood, movies and family collections. At the end, one can find each actor's filmography. The only complaint I would have regarding the book is that the material is dated (only current to 1997) and I wish an updated version could be compiled. That criticism aside, though, this is certainly a title worth owning.

Insightful interviews.
Aine O'Conner manage to capture the cadences of the various actors very well.While reading the text, I could almost hear the men speaking their words.I suspect that she didn't edit the tapes very much, save for verbal pauses (the usual "uhs" and "you knows") and forlength.Ms. O'Conner also included several photographs (many were candid)that were sprinkled throughout the various sections.

While Ms. O'Connerasked many insightful questions, she didn't follow through on many. Indeed, at times I was a little disappointed that she failed to follow upon specific points; however, that point is trivial compared to the overalleffort of the book.

If you are a fan of any or all of the actors listed,or simply are curious to see how contemporary Irish actors are dealing withthe joys and disappointments of Hollywood, then you should enjoy this book.

Great Look at the Lives of Some of Hollywoods Finest Actors
This book provides a facinating, indepth journey into the lives of six very capable and successful actors. Many humourous and sometimes tradgic tales of life in Ireland and struggles to make a name for themselves thereand in America. Each actor tells of personal hardships that they havebattled throughout their lives and how they have created such prominentstatus in today's Hollywood scene. Each story is spoken first hand whichadds to the richness of these beautiful retold memories. This book providesa greater sense of who these men are by recalling tales from childhood,adolecence and adulthood which explain their journeys to becoming the greatactors they are. ... Read more

Product Description
This exciting and innovating concepts text emphasizes all that is current, cutting-edge, and interesting to students in the introductory course. Focusing specifically on users, consumers and purchasers of technology, this text provides a no-nonsense coverage of the absolute essentials for using technology in today's wired (and wireless!) world. The "I-Series" offers excellent coverage of the basics, as well as extensive information on building a website, e-commerce, implications of technological advances, buying your first PC, maintaining a computer system, and more. Each chapter also contains coverage of ethics, security, and privacy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

DecentBook
Its A Decent Book For The Time Frame But I Wish There Was An Expanded Version To Incumpass The Next 20 Years Which He Has Done Alot More

Solid mix of text and photos
Mick Wall, writer of the Iron Maiden official biography "RUN TO THE HILLS", wrote this book back in 1985, and it is totally out of print by now... It's a good book, not even near the best rock biography ever written, but it does the job. It has very good photos and it gives a good general frame of Ozzy's career up to that point. In this age of Internet, all the information contained here could be obtained without buying the book.

GREAT BOOK IF YOU CAN FIND IT!
I got this book in the late 80's and I'm glad I bought it when I did, because it is damn hard to find. Mick Wall spends almost equal time for Ozzy's Sabbath years and his solo years(up to The Ultimate Sin). He alsogoes into Ozzy's childhood with quotes, a few pictures, and interviews thatwould be hard to find anywhere else. Lots of Sabbath and Blizzard photostoo. All the usual Ozzy stories like pissing on the alamo, biting head offdove, plus a few others you might not have heard. All in all a great bookif your an Ozzy/Sabbath fan.

ozzy
i love ozzy and for any ozzy fan this is an ideal book to read ... Read more

Product Description

Dubliners - James Joyce's stories of his native homeland - performed by a cast of 15 different actors originating from Ireland.  Unabridged.

The fifteen stories that make up this brilliant audio roam over a human landscape that stretches from the bleakest of despair to the most blinding of epiphanies.  First published in 1914, the stories are as lucid and accessible as they are memorable poignant.

As you listen to the cast of internationally famous stage and screen actors perform Dubliners, both the spiritually deadening atmosphere that drove Joyce from his homeland and the irresistible emotional pull it always kept on him to the end of his days become heartbreakingly beautiful.

Dubliners is an audio experience that will only grow in richness with each time you listen. 

The stories and performers are:

Sisters - Frank McCourt

An Encounter - Patrick McCabe

Araby - Colm Meaney

Eveline - Dearbhla Molloy

After the Race - Dan O'Herlihy

Two Gallants - Malachy McCourt

The Boarding House - Donal Donnelly

A Little Cloud - Brendan Coyle

Counterparts - Jim Norton

Clay - Sorcha Cusack

A Painful Case - Ciaran Hinds

Ivy Day in the Committee Room - T.P. McKenna

A Mother - Fionnula Flanagan

Grace - Charles Keating

The Dead - Stephen Rea

 

Customer Reviews (2)

Joyce Is Meant to Be Read Aloud
James Joyce was absorbed by music, people, languages, acting and actors, and though an exile from his native country and city, his literary consciousness was forever embedded in Dublin. He had an unerring ear for Dublin dialogue.
At night I turn out the lights and listen to these CD's, to the cadences of the people talking, and to me these Dubliners endlessly gossiping are in the room with me. Joyce's narrative adroitness, his choice of words, his lyrical descriptions, and above all, his sense of place are brilliant facets of a genius.
Stephen Rea's sensitive reading of "The Dead" is worth the price of this set of fifteen stories read by fifteen different mostly Irish personalities. The characters in the stories live and breathe, become real. Joyce was meant to be read aloud. It's good talk, conversations that you become a part of.
In these stories Joyce is very accessible. In Finnegan's Wake he became Jackson Pollock--obscure and difficult. In "The Dead" you can feel, touch, hear, and taste the snow that is falling outside the house while inside two old sisters are giving their annual bright and cheery party. It's a story of tenderness, love, regrets, and lost lovers, but it is mainly full of life, good times, fellowship, and above all humanity.

Dublin digitally discerned and declaimed
Handsomely produced, elegantly assembled, and consistently engrossing: these actors read the stories with appropriate sensitivity, wit, pathos, and distance. The detachment of Joyce in his "voice" on the page is re-created well. When I have taught students "Araby" or "The Boarding House," the chance to hear the language repeated as its author would have meant it to be rendered makes these stories come alive for a classroom six thousand miles and a century away from early 20c Dublin.

Although all of the stories succeed, those in the center of the book emerged when conveyed aloud most enlighteningly. Clay, A Mother, A Painful Case, and most of all Two Gallants, After the Race, and Counterparts all hit my ear with more force than they had when I had only read them. These stories are often overlooked compared to the others, but the skill that the actors brought to these more prosaic, less lively, and more nuanced examples of Joyce's careful craft deserve special acclaim. The packaging keeps the CDs securely in place, is itself compact and well-designed, fitting its outwardly austere & Edwardian yet subtly decorated and inviting contents.

Students, the curious newcomer, the experienced teacher, and those who read the book out of delight and not duty: all will benefit from the music on the page that by a technology Joyce himself spoke into at its early gramaphone stages is now digitally preserved so that those of us all over the world and a vastly changed world later can be entertained and instructed. I think JJ might have been pleased at this version of his pioneering, eloquent, yet accessible and moving, accounts of his imagined neighbors and municipal counterparts. ... Read more

Product Description
A concise and fascinating insight into a classic work of literature, this program includes an author biography, historical background, critical reviews, and a plot overview. The companion booklet features a character list, glossary, study questions, more study references, and more. . ... Read more

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Product Description
Chapters: Seamus Heaney, Liam Neeson, Mary Mcaleese, John Stewart Bell, Stephen Rea, Simon Callow, Cahal Daly, Martin O'neill, Paddy Mayne, Afifi Al-Akiti, David Trimble, Baron Trimble, Tim Collins, Brian Faulkner, Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick, Anthony Tohill, Paul Muldoon, Sammy Wilson, H. Montgomery Hyde, Bernadette Devlin Mcaliskey, Zöe Salmon, Robin Eames, Patrick C. Lynch, Phil Coulter, Joe Brolly, Nigel Dodds, Peter Rice, David Robinson, Reg Empey, Nick Ross, Gerard O'kane, Jim Allister, Ian Paisley, Jr., Colin Atkinson, Ciarán Carson, Eoin Macneill, David Ford, John Morrow, Arlene Foster, John Taylor, Baron Kilclooney, Séan Neeson, Brian Mawhinney, Henry Downey, Laurence Mckeown, Mark Durkan, Gay Mitchell, Jack Kyle, William Craig, Patrick Kielty, Donal Mckeown, Victor Johnston, John Alexander Sinton, Brian Hutton, Baron Hutton, John Alderdice, Baron Alderdice, Cathleen Nesbitt, David Humphreys, Alan Green, John Savage, Conor Murphy, Brian Kerr, Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore, Wesley Burrowes, Edward Macnaghten, Baron Macnaghten, James Steele, Lim Keng Yaik, Ivan Neill, Roger Mcmorrow, William Crawley, Nelson Mccausland, Augustine Henry, Annie Mac, Ronnie Flanagan, Diane Dodds, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Toiréasa Ferris, Denis Haughey, David Cullen, Rosemary Nelson, Dermott Monteith, Nigel Carr, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Philip Matthews, Gerard Mcsorley, Robin Bailie, David J. Templeton, Margaret Ritchie, Richard Ferguson, Martyn Turner, John Macdermott, Baron Macdermott, Alban Maginness, Robert Alexander, Vincent Hanna, David Bleakley, Austin Currie, William Lowry, Esmond Birnie, John Fee, Patrick Walsh, Frank Pantridge, Pat Loughrey, W. R. Rodgers, Brian Mcconnell, Baron Mcconnell, David N. Livingstone, Michael Dallat, Terri Scott, Monica Mcwilliams, Declan Morgan, Trevor Ringland, Alan Jones, George Dawson, John Cushnahan, Peter Weir, Martin O'brien, Robert Corkey, Oliver Gibson, Maurice Gibson, Wallace Browne, Baron Browne o...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=64182 ... Read more

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Chapters: Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea, James Nesbitt, Ciarán Hinds, Michael Legge, Laura Pyper, Patrick Magee, Colin Morgan, John Lynch, Conleth Hill, Colin Blakely, Jayne Wisener, Gerald Home, Siobhán Mckenna, Martin Mccann, Laura Donnelly, Harry Towb, Tara Lynne O'neill, Marie Jones, Michelle Fairley, Michael Colgan, Conor Macneill, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Olivia Nash. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 124. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher, like his father, so began a degree in French at the University of Ulster. He dropped out after a year when he decided to become an actor, and transferred to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After graduating in 1987, he spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof (1987, 1989) to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song (1991). Nesbitt got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama Cold Feet (ITV, 19982003), which won him a British Comedy Award, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award, and a National Television Award. His first significant film role came when he appeared as pig farmer "Pig" Finn in Waking Ned (1998). With the rest of the starring cast, Nesbitt was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. In Lucky Break (2001), he made his debut as a film lead playing prisoner Jimmy Hands. The next year, he played Ivan Cooper in the television film Bloody Sunday, about the 1972 shootings in Derry. A departure from his previous "cheeky ch...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2141436 ... Read more

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Chapters: Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea, James Nesbitt, Ciarán Hinds, Roma Downey, Michael Legge, Laura Pyper, Patrick Magee, Colin Morgan, John Lynch, Conleth Hill, Colin Blakely, Jayne Wisener, Gerald Home, Siobhán Mckenna, Martin Mccann, Laura Donnelly, Jimmy Cricket, Harry Towb, Ciarán Mcmenamin, Maclean Stewart, William Caulfield, Jimeoin, Tara Lynne O'neill, Charles Lawson, Paul Loughran, Susan Lynch, Michelle Fairley, James Ellis, Michael Colgan, Warren Christie, Conor Macneill, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Declan Mulholland, Kate Thompson, J. G. Devlin, Geraldine Hughes, Olivia Nash, Michael Smiley, Frances Tomelty, Gerard Mccabe, Lisa Hogg, Aislín Mcguckin, Evin Crowley. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 169. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher, like his father, so began a degree in French at the University of Ulster. He dropped out after a year when he decided to become an actor, and transferred to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After graduating in 1987, he spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof (1987, 1989) to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song (1991). Nesbitt got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama Cold Feet (ITV, 19982003), which won him a British Comedy Award, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award, and a National Television Award. His first significant film role came when he appeared as pig farmer "Pig" Finn in Waking Ned (1998). With the rest of th...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2141436 ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea, James Nesbitt, Ciarán Hinds, Adrian Dunbar, Stephen Boyd, Michael Legge, Laura Pyper, Patrick Magee, John Lynch, Conleth Hill, Colin Blakely, Jayne Wisener, Gerald Home, Siobhán Mckenna, Martin Mccann, Harry Towb, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Mcmenamin, Maclean Stewart, Tara Lynne O'neill, Charles Lawson, Susan Lynch, Marie Jones, Michelle Fairley, Michael Colgan, Beatrice Campbell, Terence Cooper, Warren Christie, Conor Macneill, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Declan Mulholland, Andrew Simpson, Geraldine Hughes, Lisa Hogg, Aislín Mcguckin, Joe Rea. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 155. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher, like his father, so began a degree in French at the University of Ulster. He dropped out after a year when he decided to become an actor, and transferred to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After graduating in 1987, he spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof (1987, 1989) to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song (1991). Nesbitt got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama Cold Feet (ITV, 19982003), which won him a British Comedy Award, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award, and a National Television Award. His first significant film role came when he appeared as pig farmer "Pig" Finn in Waking Ned (1998). With the rest of the starring cast, Nesbitt was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. In Lucky Break (2001), he made...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2141436 ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Stephen Rea (born Graham Rea; 31 October 1946) is an Irish actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for his lead performance as Fergus in the 1992film The Crying Game. Rea was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of a bus driver. One of four children in a working-class Presbyterian family, he attended Belfast High School and the Queen's University of Belfast, taking a degree in English. Rea trained at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin. In the late 1970s, he acted in the Focus Companyin Dublin with Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. During the broadcasting ban on Sinn Féin imposed by Margaret Thatcher's government, in order to cut the 'oxygen of publicity', it was interpreted that Sinn Féin members could not be heard making statements expressing the views of Sinn Féin, so Rea was one of many actors contacted to provide an actor's voice to get around that problem. ... Read more

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This exciting, new concepts text emphasizes all that is current, cutting-edge, and interesting to students in the introductory course.Focusing specifically on users, consumers and purchasers of technology, this text provides a no-nonsense coverage of the absolute essentials for using technology in today's wired world. The I-Series offers excellent coverage on the basics, as well as extensive information on building a Web site, E-Commerce, implications of technological advances, maintaining a computer system, buying your first PC, and more.Each chapter also contains coverage of security, ethics, and privacy and an introduction to the web-based Life Long Learning modules. ... Read more

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Moran is an old Republican, whose life was transformed for ever by his days of glory as a guerilla leader in the War of Independence. Now, in old age, living out in the country, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends and himself - in a struggle to come to terms with his past. ... Read more

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A thriller which focuses on World War Two hero Simon Vaughan who is freed twenty years later from a Greek prison to assist in a different kind of battle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Another faultless thriller by Higgins
In the introduction, Higgins wrote that this is one of his personal favourite and after reading it, I can see why.

The story is simple : an ex-Brit élite soldier, Simon Vaughan, was given choice of 15 years in a most undesirable prison, or a dirty job on behalf of Her Majesty's government.The job consisted of infiltrating the IRA, posing as an arms dealer, locate a shipment of gold stolen by the IRA to be used as the war-chest, neutralise the threat of a certain Michael Cork who masterminded the heist.

The development is anything but.From the start, it was a game of deadly deception between the G-men and the IRAs, not just one, but 2 competing factions.Simon found Michael Cork too cautious to get near, and had to deal through the latter's niece Norah, a Harvard-trained doctor who had seen too much death, and her bodyguard Binnie, still believing in an honourable war.Frank Barry, leader of the rival IRA faction, also wants the gold, and the arms, and seems to shadow Simon and his group at every step.

Through their conversation, readers cannot help but feel sad at the state of affairs - it had definitely gone beyond where any side can claim higher moral grounds, yet it cannot seem to stop or the victims might just lose any cause to go on living with their pain.Almost everyone has a decent reason for what they do, whether it be the IRA or the British government.And almost everyone has their hand in some unforgivable misdeed.

Higgins set out to write from his personal experiences and of those around him and he succeeded in describing the situation as a no-win for anyone but pain for everyone.It was also a warning against simplifying the heroes and the villains, but also to focus on the real victims, people who had to live with the bombings and shootings while simply trying to lead a normal live.

Higgins At It Again
Jack Higgins has created some wonderful characters, starting back with Liam Devlin in the Eagle Has Landed.He has used the device of rescuing a potential lead character from prison or death sentences in the past and Simon Vaughn appears to be the newest.The story moved with Higgins' usual pace:action-filled, developed story line and interesting characters.Worthy of a read. ... Read more

Product Description
A novel in which the boy narrator grows up enclosed in two worlds. One is legendary - a Donegal house where children are stolen away by demonic forces; the other is actual - the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, a place haunted by political enmities and family secrets.Amazon.com Review
The Derry of poet Seamus Deane's first novel, Reading inthe Dark is a perilous place. Ghosts haunt the stairwells ofapartment buildings, a curse follows two families down through thegenerations, close friends turn out to be police informers, and thepolice are as likely to persecute an innocent man as protect him. Andhovering over all the violence, poverty, and despair of 1940s NorthernIreland is the specter of the "Troubles." The hero of thenovel is an unnamed young man whose life turns upside down when apoliceman frames him. Deception becomes his only means of self-defense. But the initial lie on the part of the policeman and thenarrator's corresponding trickery are only part of the tangled webDeane weaves here. Early in the novel we learn that Uncle Eddie, anIrish Republican Army gunman, was blown up in the town distillery in1922. In addition to sorting out his own problems, the narrator seeksthe truth about his uncle's death.

Reading in the Dark sounds grim, and in some respects it is,yet leavening is provided by infusions of the Irish folktales andlegends that inform the characters' daily life. And then there is thelanguage. Deane is a poet, and his prose shows it: sex is like fire,"glinting with greed and danger"; ice snores and candles areswathed in a "thick drapery of wax." Readers looking for athoughtful, serious, and beautifully written novel will find one inReading in the Dark. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (47)

Like a fictional memoir
The book begins with an epigraph from "She Moved Through the Fair":

The people were saying no two were e'er wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said.

Those two lines carry the essence of the story. The long-term consequences of keeping secrets are at the heart of Reading in the Dark.

The unnamed narrator describes his Catholic boyhood in Derry in the 40s and 50s. Both his parents' families have secrets held since the time of the Troubles in the 1920s.
As the protagonist moves from boyhood into adolescence, he becomes almost obsessed with the family legends and bits of conversations he has heard through the years. Who really killed Billy Mahon? Who was the informer? Is Uncle Eddie dead or alive? And why did McIlhenny run off to America? Eventually the boy pieces together the truth, but it comes at some cost to himself and his family. Too late he discovers that even those we love cannot bear our presence once we have uncovered what lies behind their deepest shame.

Woven into the early narrative are some juicy Irish myths, ghost stories, and superstitions. I would have welcomed more of these as the story progressed, but Deane abandoned them in favor of a more serious tone. This was my only disappointment, as I'd come to look forward to the next interjection of folklore.

All in all a fine work for a poet's first novel. Like his narrator, Seamus Deane grew up in Derry in the 40s and 50s, so this could almost work as a fictional memoir.

haunting memories
Deane is an author I wish I read years ago.His rendering of Northern Ireland'sviolent history leaves the reader breathless with complex plot, emotional upheaval, and chilling notions of a past which doesn't stay dead, haunting the living.Writing out of personal experience, his representation of life growing up a Catholic in Derry is as true to the local reality as it is profound and relevant to the human condition as a whole.Superb narrative, and deft adaptation of Gothic elements, especially his use of nested storytelling.

Family Secrets
This book is about growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland, a very complicated place!About a child caught up in a violent history and a mysterious feud, haunted by superstition and family secrets, terrorized by the police, browbeaten by priests. It is also a mystery story--what secret is his mother hiding? What really happened to Uncle Eddie? And it has barbed humor worthy ofFrank McCourt.

The writing is elegant, but this is not an easy read. The subplots are complicated. Some chapters have little to do with the main plot. The reader picks up clues as they occur to the unnamed protagonist. The pieces come together slowly, like a jigsaw puzzle. In the end the reader is left with a vivid, warts and all, picture of life in Northern Ireland, past and present, on the Catholic side. It seems too real to be a novel, but at least the names are fictional. Worth reading, if you are willing to give it the time and attention it requires.

Coming of age, 1945-60 (or so) in Irish Derry
While I enjoyed this novel for its evocation of the moods of downmarket Derry in the postwar mid-20th century period, much of the plot driven by the narrator's attempts to decipher the truth about his family's involvement with the death of a man falsely claimed to be an informer and the flight of the one who was the informer failed to engage me. It's as if the whole mystery that the unnamed narrator unravels stays more locked in his head rather than leaping across into your mind. The book has an extremely hermetic quality, and therefore recalls both the memoirs of Frank McCourt and recent Irish writers as well as, inevitably, Joyce's "Portrait." The scrupulous detachment of Joyce, however, tends to enter this novel more than the sentimentality of a memoirist. There may be about the same amount of humor as in early Joyce, but much more of this work deals with demons externalized rather than internalized.

Yet, this novel will not allow you to wander in your imagination through fully-realized Derry on paper. Contrasted with McCourt's Limerick or Joyce's Dublin, you will gain less of an external sense of Derry's streets; the mental demons and emotional tensions predominate. Deane wishes to place you inside a boy's growing independence from the inhibitions, betrayals, and surveillance that keep him enclosed in Derry.

The phrasing Deane--often deftly-- employs pays homage to his predecessor, and like Stephen Dedalus, the young boy grows up under the tutelage of Jesuits, a working-class urban neighborhood hemmed off by sectarian divides and municipal gerrymandering from its more prosperous neighbors, and an atmosphere redolent of corruption between police and prelates. There's a chapter with a Maths teacher's madly logical recital that could have sprung, on the other hand, from Flann O'Brien, and for lighter comedy many conversations on topics as disparate as curses from returned husbands at sea, the fort Grianan's secret passage, and the film "Beau Geste" -- the latter one made me miss my subway stop, so caught up was I in the wry comedic touches reproducing recursive Irish conversation.

Overall, however, this sober look back at childhood remains with you for the menacing touches-- of Crazy Jim's lubriciously leering ascetism, of a whiskey distillery exploding under police assault on an IRA squad, on the vignettes of suppressed lust and Ignatian spirituality and classroom banter. The book did rush past the Troubles and I wish this had either been left for a sequel, as it deserved fuller attention, or left out. The later decades are glimpsed, but so interesting is Deane's material here that you wish for more than the handful of pages that serve as a coda to the postwar emphasis.

Two brief examples of Deane's prose, both about the same event and place but recalled in chapters separated by five years and a hundred and fifty pages, illustrate his method. The narrator's trying to piece together the past and the fate of the informer that serves as the plot, however dispersed and slowly shared. Such distension of elements that make up this novel is characteristic, and may either lull readers or entrance them. "The dismembered streets lay strewn all around the ruined distillery where Uncle Eddie had fought, aching with a long, dolorous absence. With the distillery gone the smell of vaporised whiskey and heated red brick, the sullen glow that must have loomed over the crouching houses like an amber sunset." (32) This for me recalls a story from "Dubliners."

Compare: "And the distillery smouldered into the dawn, surprising the seagulls who came in from the docks to soar around it and cry away from its heat and smell." (193) This too may recall Joyce! Yet, I do not mean to place Deane within the formidable power only of Joyce. While resonances abound, the added edge of The Troubles and the Northern milieu do show readers elsewhere impressions of an bucolically placed, if often dolefully embattled, city on the River Foyle which, far less than Belfast, or even than neighboring Donegal, has earned much attention in Irish fiction.

While the novel by its ambling structure fragments the telling of the narrator's maturation into gradual understanding cloaked by familial secrets, and so dilutes the impact upon the reader and the narrator, the strongest features remain the telling of the tale itself, more than the tale's contents. "Ghosts of the Disappeared" haunt a field, a child's soul remains trapped in a window, rural changelings and the urban insane mingle in the streets of Derry and the stories of its uprooted people. They enter the city, yet cannot escape rural Irish superstition and the maledictions of their ancestors. This long shadow darkens and ultimately permeates the narrator and his novel.

More than just a novel
This is a beautiful book, highly poetic and inspiring. I had never read anything like this, and I've read hundreds if not thousands novels. And, as a former Catholic, I recognize the pressure, the narrow-mindedness, the fanaticism, as well as the greatness. I loved reacing this book, and I will be very unhappy until I find something as good, which may be never. ... Read more