- Paperback: 162 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; Reprint edition (Mar 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312273185
- ISBN-13: 978-0312273187
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.9 x 1.1 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,149,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Colum McCann uses the point of view of an innocent to superb effect in his new novella and two stories, Everything in this Country Must. The title is taken from the first story, in which Katie, a 15-year-old girl, strives to help her father save a drowning horse. She fears that the horse will die, "since everything in this country must."
Although Katie's voice is a little too cute at times, McCann really finds his stride in the novella, "Hunger Strike", told from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, whose uncle is on hunger strike in Long Kesh. In the confused and conflicted boy, McCann succeeds in expressing the inability of most people to comprehend the experience of watching someone starve themselves to death. Staying with his mother in a caravan in Galway, the boy envies his uncle and misses the North. All the incipient signs of becoming "a hard man" are there: half a letter self-tattooed on his finger; throwing stones at sheep; spitting at cars; and shouting "tough shite" at any opportunity. The boy tears out his uncle's picture from a newspaper and folds it into his pocket, saying, "He could stay alive in there and emerge when all of this was over." He also begins to refuse to eat and moulds bits of food into small chess pieces, something he can easily control. The text is interrupted by charts showing the mounting days, dropping weights and blood pressure of the prisoners. The relationship between the mother and son is exceptionally well-drawn--the moments she doesn't scold him for swearing and the moments he notices her let slip the word "wee" and they share pride in their Northern-ness. The boy's puberty is visually exact as when he parades himself with "his shirt ambitiously undone" when his first chest hair appears. As the uncle's death approaches, the boy's incapacity for tenderness and emotional release finds outlet in a final destructive act which McCann balances very convincingly.
This highly accomplished new work has benefitted from gestation at a distance and shows how the Troubles will linger in writer's minds long after a lasting peace. --Cherry Smyth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
One powerful novella, with two thematically linked short stories on either side of it, forms the basis of EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY MUST. Although these are stories about Ireland and the Troubles, they have an almost mythical rather than a political feel. In the title story, four young soldiers help a farmer and his daughter free their horse from a stream in flood, unable to understand that their help will never be anything but an insult. In the novella, 'Hunger Strike', a young boy and his mother flee to Galway as the boy's uncle succumbs to a hunger strike in a Derry gaol. In 'Wood', a ten-year-old boy is asked by his mother to make poles for the marching season.
--This text refers to an alternate
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5 reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Everything in this Country Must a Must
15 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
Colum McCann, one of the finest young writers in Ireland & Amreica continues to grace us with this corageous book. Not just corageous for the obvious subject, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but its deeper one -- the connections between the life around us (political and otherwise) and the life inside us. At its center is not so much the Troubles but the depths and power of love -- love for country, for God, for family and for one's self. These loves are at odds with one another. The narrator of the title story loves her father and lost mother and brother, yet she feels drawn to the young English soldier who helps them save their horse, and very well may have caused the accident that killed her mother and brother. The mother in "Wood" must decide between her love for her invalid husband and her Protestant identity, and tries to balance them. And in "Hunger Strike" a boy's coming of age through his uncle's and country's political strife is guided and challenged by adults who wish to protect him and soothe his rage. This is not the "All You Need is Love" kind of love. This is deep, spritual, love -- the thing binds us and breaks us, and McCann is brave for tackling this within a political context and a world that often values surface issues instead of, to paraphrase Norman McClean, the river that runs through us.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A little great book!
2 Mar 2001
Format:Hardcover
Northern Ireland, with its troubled history and its extreme enviroment, is an easy subject for second-rate writers, and actually you can find a lot of would-be thrillers, unlikely to get a second edition.
For the same reason, Northern Ireland is a difficoult subject for good writers. That's why you can find many interesting non-fiction books, but really few good novels.
With "Everything in this country must" Colum McCann proves once again to be a great writer. While reading it, I was nearly overwhelmed by emotions. And I was amazed by both the simplicity and the effectivness of his writing.
It's a little book, just 150 pages. You could read it in two hours. But because it's a great book I would suggest you to read it very, very slowly, enjoying every word, every line, every emotion. And in so doing, may be you happen to realize that McCann is deceiving all of us: he writes poems disguised as short stories.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Purchase this book now!
26 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the few books of its genre that I actually enjoyed. The characters and settings simply jump out of the pages at you and make you see so vidly everything that the author is attempting to convey.
I can't think of a single part of this book where I wasn't completely mesmerized by both the intelligent way the characters and plots weren't handling in an intelligent and poignant manner.
BRAVO!
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