Tag: contemporary fiction

Book Review – A Place Without Pain by Simon Bourke @Simon_Bourke28

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About the Book

Book cover of A Place Without Pain by Simon Bourke

Aidan Collins has always been an outsider, a weirdo, an oddball. But the arrival of his worldly, urbane cousin Dan, changes his life completely. Dan introduces Aidan to alcohol, to girls, to a life beyond the four walls of his bedroom, and eventually, to the night out to end all nights out in Dublin.

What he sees in the capital, what he’s exposed to, also changes Aidan’s life, but not in a good way. A scene behind a closed door haunts him, torments him, leaving behind scars which may never heal.

Format: ebook (518 pages) Publisher:
Publication date: 30th January 2024 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

Simon Bourke’s first book, And The Birds Kept On Singing published in 2017, is one I frequently recommend as deserving more attention. It’s one of those books that only has a few reviews but those it has are overwhelmingly positive. So I was delighted when Simon got in touch to let me know he had published his second novel. You can read my Q&A with Simon about A Place Without Pain here.

The author really gets under the skin of the book’s narrator, Aidan Collins. It’s fair to say he’s a troubled soul, crippled with anxiety that means he hides away in his bedroom for much of the time, playing computer games, watching films or porn. It’s his way of escaping from a world which frankly frightens him, where he feels he doesn’t fit in. Although intelligent, he’s never had a job, relying instead on welfare payments. His solution to problems or challenging situations is to ignore them or run away from them. ‘Everyone hates you. You’d better not go out. Stay here where it’s safe.’ When opportunities do present themselves he often wastes them, leaving him filled with self-loathing at his own failures.

You’d think from this that Aidan is a pretty unlikeable character but, in the hands of the author, you can’t help rooting for him even if at times you’re left completely exasperated by his actions. My overriding feeling was one of sadness particularly when just as it seems things are looking up something happens to propel him back into misery. There were moments I wanted to cheer and others where I found myself thinking, ‘Oh, Aidan, Aidan, why are you doing that?’. Sadly, the latter were more frequent than the former.

The traumatic event Aidan witnesses on a rare night out is a psychological scar he carries throughout his life. He’s plagued with guilt about what he did, or rather didn’t do. He should have been a hero, instead he knows he was a coward. It sort of epitomises what his life has been like. In an effort to bury the memories of what he witnessed, to find the place without pain of the book’s title, he turns to alcohol and drugs. They welcome him with a warm embrace. ‘I was a child of the drink now’. For a long time his days are one long round of visits to the off-licence and drinking himself into a stupor. His parents are either passively complicit or unable to find a way to modify his behaviour. The drink doesn’t stop the pain or his feelings of despair and utter worthlessness. As he observes, ‘the booze was proving an abusive parent.’

Only a chance encounter stops him from taking an irrevocable step. It sets him on a new path, one which offers the promise of turning his life around if only he can break the cycle of self-destructive behaviour. But maybe believing yourself to be a hero is just as dangerous as believing yourself a failure.

Aidan’s story is an emotional rollercoaster with slow ascents followed by dizzying drops. It will take you to dark places and includes some scenes that are difficult to read. The epitome of a character-led book, A Place Without Pain is a hard-hitting story of loneliness and the struggle to overcome your demons.

My thanks to the author for my digital review copy.

In three words: Powerful, gritty, moving

About the Author

Author Simon Bourke

Simon is a journalist by day and an author by night (and occasionally on the weekends). If given the choice he would be an author by day, night, weekends, and everything in between, but he must persevere with the journalism while he waits for his books to become best-sellers. He currently lives in County Wexford. A Place Without Pain is his second novel.

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Book Review – Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan @TransworldBooks

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About the Book

Book cover of Heart, Be At Peace by Donal Ryan

Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two.

In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.

But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch… 

Format: Hardcover (224 pages) Publisher: Transworld Books
Publication date: 8th August 2024 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

I first heard about this book when I attended a recording of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub to listen to Donal talk about his first novel, The Spinning Heart and answer questions from the audience of readers. In response to one reader worried about Bobby’s fate at the end of the book, Donal said they would get reassurance in the sequel.

Like The Spinning Heart, Heart, Be at Peace consists of a series of internal monologues by twenty-one different characters – men and women – each with a distinctive voice.  It’s described by the publishers as a ‘companion novel’ to The Spinning Heart that can be read as a standalone. Personally, I think you get a richer reading experience if you’ve read The Spinning Heart because you’re learning about the continuing impact of events in the earlier book, as well as catching up with characters who are already familiar to you and seeing what they have made of their lives in the intervening years.

For some of the characters, what they’ve made of themselves is not much. Others have come out of their experiences stronger and wiser. Their stories sometimes involve dark themes, such as mental illness and there’s often violence, or its legacy, just under the surface.

Bobby was essentially the ‘hero’ of The Spinning Heart and he has pretty much the same role here. He is almost universally admired by his community. ‘Bobby is one of those rare men who measures himself against the wellbeing of the people around him. If there’s a problem he takes it personally and does his damnedest to solve it.’ He worked hard to help the town recover from the failure of the local building company that was the focus of the first book. He’s a regular visitor to his ailing mother-in-law and a faithful husband, despite seeming evidence to the contrary. He’s also shown forgiveness towards a man who, given the circumstances, you’d think he should hate. Perhaps it’s because Bobby came so close to acting in the same way himself.

Pokey Burke, the man responsible for the bankruptcy of the building company is still around and has found a new outlet for his devious ways, aided by an unwitting dupe. His role as villain of the piece has been usurped by Augie Penrose, the local drug dealer. Bobby feels a responsibility to take action out of fear for his children. In fact the urge to act is so strong it risks taking him down a path he has tried to resist, haunted by the memory of his violent father. As it turns out, there is someone with an even stronger motivation for ridding the community of the purveyors of the vile trade, just one of the many connections between characters and events.

If this sounds like the book is all about Bobby, it’s not. Each of the other characters has something to contribute although, as is to be expected, some resonate more than others. We learn about their hopes and fears, doubts and regrets, their successes and failures. We also get insights into other characters, and to events past and present. There are confessions, revelations and new perspectives. And there’s the odd touch of humour too since, let’s face it, most of us have some funny little ways unique to us.

As in The Spinning Heart, the final voice we hear is Bobby’s wife, Triona, the woman who knows him best. ‘I know what he’s capable of and what’s beyond him. I know his goodness better than he knows it himself.’ Full of compassion and understanding it means the book concludes on a note of optimism.

I appreciate the polyphonic structure of the book may not work for every reader, but it did for me. I felt the characters really came alive on the page even, possibly especially, the flawed ones. My introduction to Donal Ryan’s writing was From A Low and Quiet Sea. Now, having read The Spinning Heart and this book, I’m eager to explore the rest of his back catalogue.

I received a review copy courtesy of Transworld via NetGalley. Heart, Be at Peace is book 7 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

In three words: Immersive, authentic, moving
Try something similar: Mouthing by Orla Mackey

About the Author

Author Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted ‘Irish Book of the Decade’.

His fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel Strange Flowers was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel, The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.

Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.