When will i learn? You can’t tell a book by (the reviews on) its cover.Is there supposed to be an apostrophe there? Sorry miss truss, if there is. i always assume that the possessive gets an ‘ but it looks wrong in its. Sorry, i digress.

    NECESSARY PRE-BLURB

This entry may contain spoilers. It will definately barely contain my opinions, as well as vivid, possibly vitriolic expressions of the way the datapiece in question left me feeling. i do not pretend to have skill, professionalism or profundity. i write for my own entertainment. Whether you read my (gag)blog or not is irrelevant to me, as is your reaction to it. My opinions are opinions only and not to be mistaken for the ultimate truth about matters.

This book by Anne Haverty was readable enough, albeit predictable, but the reviews on the jacket – that i bought it because of – were somewhat of a mystery to me.

No, it’s not comic, not at all. Tragedy after tragedy unfolds from the very first page. We are given a view into the heavingly glum and/or passive-aggressive lives of an irish farming community; sad-sacks, drinkers, and angry young men who turn their disappointments in love or life into smarmy bitterness or barely held-in violence. The narrator/main character is frankly the asshole to end all assholes. i think the authoress must have been getting her own back on someone she really hated by writing him into a novel. If some of the plot elements were meant to make me feel sorry for him, the tactic didn’t work.

No, it has no “magic realism one associates with latin america,” as david robson said in the sunday telegraph. He’s thinking, i suppose of alejandro i forget his surname – is it carpentier?(the lost steps), and maybe 100 years of solitude, or the vision of elena silves. But i can’t imagine why. There really wasn’t a trace of magical realism here at all, unless he means Missy, and if he does, well, that’s not how i interpreted her.

Missy was possibly meant to be some sort of protest and/or warning about the dangers of mucking about with genetic modification. The human genes squirted into her sheep start-up kit became more dominant, resulting in a sort of splice-style mix, although obviously more sheepshape and not a dab hand with the scrabble tiles. Thankfully the main man only fucks his brother’s wife, rather than the halfling. Although it’s to be admitted that the splice sex scene is what shot that film to legendary status. The director’s insistence on that scene appearing had all the U.S. studios refusing to have anything to do with it, leaving france to make it, the french possibly being less nervous about dubious sexual practises. Or something.

Sheesh, can i stay focussed on the book rant for more than a minute here?

The female lead was an annoying cocktease of the worst kind, subtly manipulative and immature. She deserved absolutely all the tragedy she got. In fact, i think Haverty must have hated a whole bunch of classmates and written them all in: there wasn’t a single character to like, except possibly the dead parental figures and the poor woman who died of her hip replacement.

The goodie brother was too pathetic to have my sympathy and the horrible brother was too awful to have my admiration – and usually i like the villains. But he was too much the petty, jealous, scheming layabout irish git. His relationship with Missy captured perfectly the love-hate volatility of his social stereotype – the sort of man who beats his wife in a rage and then weeps for forgiveness at her feet afterwards. Every time. Dalmane porridge for you, mate. Put you out of our misery, never mind yours.