About the Book
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe.
But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.
Format: eARC (272 pages) Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication date: 2nd March 2023 Genre: Literary Fiction
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My Review
Sebastian Barry is the author of a book that has stayed with me ever since I read it back in 2017, the wonderful Days Without End. (I wasn’t alone in loving it because it went on to win the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction that year.) He’s done it again with Old God’s Time which is just as wonderful and unforgettable.
Written in close third person, the author takes us inside the mind of retired policeman, Tom Kettle. And what an unsettling and disordered place it is to be as past and present intermingle. Tom remembers some things like they were yesterday. On the other hand, events and conversations that appear to be occurring in the present day turn out to be the product of his imagination or echoes of things that happened long ago. Some of these moments, especially those concerning his family are truly heartbreaking.
As Tom looks back on his marriage to June, we are witness to an intensely moving love story. Tom may get confused about other things but he can remember the day he met June with perfect clarity, even the dress she wore. And as the story unfolds, we learn that. as children. they both experienced horrific cruelty at the hands of Catholic priests. The details are harrowing and difficult to read but it feels necessary to do so to bear witness to the people who experienced this in real life and to understand the devastating and lasting impact it had on them. Also shocking is, if not actual complicity, then a failure to act by other institutions including the Garda, the police service of Ireland in which Tom himself served.
It’s such a failure that had dreadful consequences for Tom and June, setting off a chain of tragic events. His resilience in the face of tragedy is humbling. ‘Things happened to people, and some people were required to lift great weights that crushed you if you faltered just for a moment. It was his job not to falter. But every day he faltered. Every day he was crushed, and rose again the following morn…’
There are mesmerising descriptions of the sea, the changing light and weather that Tom observes through the picture window of his flat as he sits in his favourite, ‘sun-faded’ wicker chair smoking a cigarillo. There are also touches of wry humour.
My first thought on finishing the book was, Oh Tom, I wish I could give you a hug; my second was, what a truly brilliant piece of writing. Old God’s Time is the kind of book that, on turning the last page, you want to read all over again. It’s also further proof that a novel doesn’t have to be big to deliver a powerful punch. Old God’s Time is definitely the best book I’ve read so far this year.
You can read an extract from Old God’s Time here. I can also recommend this Waterstones podcast in which Sebastian Barry talks about the book and his approach to writing.
I received a review copy courtesy of Faber & Faber via NetGalley.
In three words: Lyrical, tender, heartbreaking
Try something similar: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
About the Author
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. The current Laureate for Irish Fiction, his novels have twice won the Costa Book of the Year award, the Independent Booksellers Award and the Walter Scott Prize. He had two consecutive novels shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize – A Long Long Way (2005) and the top ten bestseller The Secret Scripture (2008) – and has also won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lives in County Wicklow. (Photo: Publisher author page)
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