Hand in the Fire
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Product Description
Review
'Hugo Hamilton is a major international writer who just happens to have grown up in Ireland. His great subject is innocence. In its strength and grace, his work glows.'
Anne Enright
‘Hamilton is adept at portraying issues of cultural translation…an intriguing addition to Hamilton’s fictional oeuvre.’ TLS
‘Love and violence are two sides of the same coin in this sympathetic consideration of what it means to be an exile and of the nature of friendship’ Daily Mail
‘Profound.’ Sinead Gleeson, Irish Times
‘Magnificently lucid.’ Independent
‘A rewarding read, offering us a fresh perspective on Irish society through only partly comprehending immigrant eyes.’ Liam Harte, Irish Times
Product Description
You have a funny way of doing things here.
The voice is that of Vid Cosic, a Serbian immigrant whose immediate friendship with a young Dublin lawyer, Kevin Concannon, is overshadowed by a violent incident in which a man is left for dead in the street one night. The legal fallout forces them into an ever closer, uncertain partnership, drawing Vid right into the Concannon family, working for them as a carpenter on a major renovation project and becoming more and more involved in their troubled family story.
While he claims to have lost his own memory in a serious accident back home in Serbia, he cannot help investigating the emerging details of a young woman from Connemara who was denounced by the church and whose pregnant body was washed up on the Aran Islands many years ago. Was it murder or suicide? And what dark impact does this event in the past still have on the Concannon family now?
As the deadly echo of hatred and violence begins to circle closer around them, Vid finds this spectacular Irish friendship coming under increasing threat with fatal consequences.
Drawing on his own speckled, Irish-German background, Hugo Hamilton has given us a highly compelling and original view of contemporary Ireland, the nature of welcome and the uneasy trespassing into a new country.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Hugo Hamilton, relying to some extent perhaps from his own Irish-German background, uses a traditional but still no less effective means to examine modern Western society, lifestyles and attitudes through fresh eyes, by using an outsider alien to the culture and the finer points of language and behaviour - specifically here through the means of Vid Cosic, a Serbian immigrant looking for work and the chance to start a new life in Ireland - as a means to examine the less edifying attitudes that they often hide.
The book's opening line observation that "You have a funny way of doing things here" proves then to be an accurate one, with potential misunderstandings leading to some humorous incidents as well as more serious ones, pinpointing the fine dividing line between camaraderie and enmity, between joking and seriousness, between word and intent that lies at the heart not only of the nature of the Irish - although its observations here are sharp and pertinent particularly within a certain class - but in the normal everyday interaction of wider society, relating to people, families and friendships in general and particularly in how we each carry with us the weight of the past.
Vid Cosic is a personable and an interesting character to adopt in the making of such observations. Coming from Serbia, his family victims of the violence there, he himself has been injured in a car accident that he claims has made him forget much of his own past. Young and in a strange place, escaping from a violent conflict back home, he could be forgiven for seeing things in black-and white terms. The need to fit in however is a vital impulse within everyone and Vid's dilemma, as it is for everyone, is how far one must go to be accepted while retaining one's honesty, dignity and integrity. Even though he forms a close friendship with a lawyer, Kevin Concannon, and becomes a close friend of his family, Vid still seems to remain an outsider. It's as if all the troubles of the Irish seem to be expressed or reflected through the strained relationships of the Concannon family, where Vid is a welcome and helpful visitor, but one who is kept at a respectful distance by a culture and a past that he cannot completely comprehend. It's a distance however that also keeps the different generations of the Concannon family from relating to one another.
As interesting as these ideas and the central character are (and there are quite a lot of other relevant contemporary social issues raised in passing), it's the means that Hugo Hamilton chooses to illustrate the story through a contemporary violent incident and by one or two in the past, linking the underlying sentiments behind them, that give the novel an additional element of suspense and tension. Hand in the Fire is a wonderfully readable book then, one that has real characters facing real-life dilemmas to draw you in, but with the subtle touch of an insightful and brilliant writer capable of drawing out deeper elements of self-examination and recognition in relation to modern society and our place in it in a manner that any reader can identify with.
The book's opening line observation that "You have a funny way of doing things here" proves then to be an accurate one, with potential misunderstandings leading to some humorous incidents as well as more serious ones, pinpointing the fine dividing line between camaraderie and enmity, between joking and seriousness, between word and intent that lies at the heart not only of the nature of the Irish - although its observations here are sharp and pertinent particularly within a certain class - but in the normal everyday interaction of wider society, relating to people, families and friendships in general and particularly in how we each carry with us the weight of the past.
Vid Cosic is a personable and an interesting character to adopt in the making of such observations. Coming from Serbia, his family victims of the violence there, he himself has been injured in a car accident that he claims has made him forget much of his own past. Young and in a strange place, escaping from a violent conflict back home, he could be forgiven for seeing things in black-and white terms. The need to fit in however is a vital impulse within everyone and Vid's dilemma, as it is for everyone, is how far one must go to be accepted while retaining one's honesty, dignity and integrity. Even though he forms a close friendship with a lawyer, Kevin Concannon, and becomes a close friend of his family, Vid still seems to remain an outsider. It's as if all the troubles of the Irish seem to be expressed or reflected through the strained relationships of the Concannon family, where Vid is a welcome and helpful visitor, but one who is kept at a respectful distance by a culture and a past that he cannot completely comprehend. It's a distance however that also keeps the different generations of the Concannon family from relating to one another.
As interesting as these ideas and the central character are (and there are quite a lot of other relevant contemporary social issues raised in passing), it's the means that Hugo Hamilton chooses to illustrate the story through a contemporary violent incident and by one or two in the past, linking the underlying sentiments behind them, that give the novel an additional element of suspense and tension. Hand in the Fire is a wonderfully readable book then, one that has real characters facing real-life dilemmas to draw you in, but with the subtle touch of an insightful and brilliant writer capable of drawing out deeper elements of self-examination and recognition in relation to modern society and our place in it in a manner that any reader can identify with.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Hand in the Fire is the story of the adventures and misadventures of a Serbian immigrant in Ireland. Our hero Vid Cosic is quite literally an innocent abroad.
Vid becomes involved in the life of the Concannon family. He is very helpful to them and they in turn treat him frankly appallingly. This is a dysfunctional family at war with itself and almost everyone they come into contact with. Much of the family's strife seems to have its origins in a quasi-mythical story of a female ancestor who drowned. This woman was pregnant and unmarried. There is much doubt surrounding her fate. Was it suicide or murder? Did a priest incite her death or not? This incident haunts the family but there are as many different versions as there are family members.
Vid's experiences with the family mirror those of many immigrants. The Concannon family reflect the behaviour of many host countries towards immigrants. At times they are welcoming. At others they exploitative and rejecting. Most of all they appear to be greatly resentful of what they regard as intrusion.
The novel works well with the Concannons being a metaphor for modern Ireland; both are haunted by their past (mainly because they cannot agree on the significance of that past). It is beautifully written with many lyrical asides on subjects as diverse as the attraction of pubs and eating ice cream on cold winter nights.
The most effective aspect is that the book gives the reader an outsider's perspective on the country fully exposing both its attractions and foibles. As Vid observes;
"You have a funny way of doing things here" .
This is a good novel for anyone interested in Ireland or the immigrant experience.
Vid becomes involved in the life of the Concannon family. He is very helpful to them and they in turn treat him frankly appallingly. This is a dysfunctional family at war with itself and almost everyone they come into contact with. Much of the family's strife seems to have its origins in a quasi-mythical story of a female ancestor who drowned. This woman was pregnant and unmarried. There is much doubt surrounding her fate. Was it suicide or murder? Did a priest incite her death or not? This incident haunts the family but there are as many different versions as there are family members.
Vid's experiences with the family mirror those of many immigrants. The Concannon family reflect the behaviour of many host countries towards immigrants. At times they are welcoming. At others they exploitative and rejecting. Most of all they appear to be greatly resentful of what they regard as intrusion.
The novel works well with the Concannons being a metaphor for modern Ireland; both are haunted by their past (mainly because they cannot agree on the significance of that past). It is beautifully written with many lyrical asides on subjects as diverse as the attraction of pubs and eating ice cream on cold winter nights.
The most effective aspect is that the book gives the reader an outsider's perspective on the country fully exposing both its attractions and foibles. As Vid observes;
"You have a funny way of doing things here" .
This is a good novel for anyone interested in Ireland or the immigrant experience.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The strength of 'Hand in the Fire' is the detachment that Hamilton developed in his loosely autobiographical works `The Speckled People' and `The Sailor in the Wardrobe'. But instead of using the child's view of Ireland, growing up half-Irish and half-German, he makes the central character a Serbian immigrant and carpenter, Vid Cosic.
Vid gives us a take on modern Ireland that is a mixture of puzzlement and affection, his confusion brought into sharp relief by a violent incident that draws him closely into the affairs of the Concannon family, and into a plot taking us from Dublin to a washed up and pregnant corpse on one of the Aran islands.
Anyone expecting another `Speckled People' or `Sailor in the Wardrobe', which are far richer books, may be disappointed but nonetheless entertained by a fine writer.
Vid gives us a take on modern Ireland that is a mixture of puzzlement and affection, his confusion brought into sharp relief by a violent incident that draws him closely into the affairs of the Concannon family, and into a plot taking us from Dublin to a washed up and pregnant corpse on one of the Aran islands.
Anyone expecting another `Speckled People' or `Sailor in the Wardrobe', which are far richer books, may be disappointed but nonetheless entertained by a fine writer.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"You have a funny way of doing things here..."
"... Like friendship, for example. Nobody does friendship like you do in this country." The way friendship is offered, or withdrawn, in an "all or nothing" way. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Friederike Knabe
A little slow
This author is very observant and descriptive, so that is a good thing, but the storyline I felt did become a little tedious. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Pen pal
Bearable Tale Of An Immigrant's Epiphany
It must be the easiest thing in the world at the moment if you're an author to write about immigrants. Read more
Published on 20 May 2010 by Mr. D. J. Brindle
Outside looking in
It's interesting to look at a country and its people, especially your own, through the eyes of an outsider. Read more
Published on 13 May 2010 by P. McCauley
A modest but unspectacular book
Hand In The Fire is the story of Vid, a Serbian immigrant in Ireland and the friendship that develops between himself, a lawyer and the lawyer's family following a serious violent... Read more
Published on 8 April 2010 by I. Bullen
Dreadful
I think the title of my review sums this book up perfectly. Technically the writing is good but stylistically it does not stand out from the many identikit novels which are... Read more
Published on 24 Mar 2010 by P. Millar
Fine novel about belonging from the immigrant's perspective
I thoroughly enjoyed this book which explores what it is like to be an immigrant trying to fit in to a strange society. Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2010 by J. Aitken
A journey to the wrong place?
This is a novel about belonging and displacement. Its narrator, Vid, is a Serb in modern Dublin, trying to fit in. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2010 by Sheenagh Pugh
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