In the Forest: Amazon.co.uk: Edna O'Brien: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

Irish novelist Edna O'Brien is again the centre of controversy with her latest novel In the Forest. Forty years ago her first six novels were banned but times have changed.

She also wrote The Country Girls in 1962 and was vilified in Ireland. Taking as her subject matter the actual murders of a young mother, her toddler son and a priest in 1994 in County Clare, she is accused of exploiting grief, of gross insensitivity, of being motivated only by financial gain and of portraying Ireland as timeless and primitive. Her comeback is that "the novelist is the psychic and moral historian of his or her society. So it's about that part of Ireland I know very well...and the darkness that still prevails".

Not surprisingly this "true crime" novel makes for sombre and uncomfortable reading. O'Brien is unquestionably skilled at deploying language to create a highly charged atmosphere: even Cloosh Wood, where much of the action unfolds, takes on its own sinister personality where "the light [becomes] darker and darker into the chamber of non-light".

In tightly written chapters each with a change of narrator--the murderer himself, his sister and father, the murdered young woman, Eily Ryan, her sister, the priest, Father John, neighbours, the police--the effect is of accumulating tension and foreboding, despite our knowing (or because we know?) the terrible outcome. But in making the voices of her numerous characters so fragmented as to suggest a society in the grip of terror, O'Brien fails to make them resonate as individuals, except for the killer, the young psychotic, Mich.

Brutalised at home, abused by his priests and his peers, he becomes the feared "kindershcreck". In his late teens he is released from jail for a string of crimes, and returns to his old turf. Stalked by the brutality of his past, he in turn stalks Eily Ryan, a hippy-ish figure, living with her three-year-old son in a ramshackle cottage that Mich had seen as his own lair. Eily becomes to him "all-mothering, all-sinning. She-devil...Now the ultimate flood of rage that has been waiting is loosed from the wrenched and bloodied sockets of his fucked life as he tears her clothing in an ecstasy of hate, as though tearing limb from limb all womankind". With these terrible deaths and the hunting down of Mich, O'Brien suggests that the crimes are not Mich's alone: fear, bigotry, misogyny, repression and silence permeate the culture. And out of this, such evils come. --Ruth Petrie

Review

This is still number 4 in Ireland, which is wonderful news. Edna is attending the Edinburgh Festival on 16 August. Just to remind you of the fantastic reviews the book has received over here: 'The writing is very well judged, for the most part, and is sometimes exceptional'Tom Dunne, The TLS 'The triumph of this book lies in its evocation of the violent adolescent boy... O'Brien isvery accomplished in her portrayal of his crazy scattergun speech.'Barbara Trapido, THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'This is a frightening, disconcerting and unforgettable piece of work.'Elizabeth Buchan, THE DAILY MAIL 'Nothing I have read since Blake Morrison's account of the James Bulger Case, AS IF, comes close to O'Brien's insights into the complex web of causes and contexts that make up the 'whys' of murder.'Laurence Warening, The HERALD 'By fictionalising her account, Ms O'Brien allows herself an imaginative freedom which gives thestory a new life, sharpening the sense of horror and the lost opportunity, while at no point allowing us to forget its truth.'The ECONOMIST 'O'Brien's portrayal of a community united in unease is faultless.'Claudia Fitzhebert, THEDAILY TELEGRAPH 'IN THE FOREST is one of her most powerful and effective novels, a model of its kind.'David Robson, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'IN THE FOREST is a hauntingly sympathetic depiction of evil.... For O'Brien this is a Greek tragedy 'that needed to be written'. Fortunately her writing is poetic enoughfor you to feel that, yes, however painful, it also needs to be written.'VivGroksop, THE EXPRESS 'IN THE FOREST is a magnificent book, haunting, instinctive and shocking.... When art is this good, it cannot be afraid to speak out.'Louise Rimmer, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 'A spare, compelling and compassionate novel. IN THE FOREST was not just a worthwhile enterprise, but a necessary and successful one.'Ronan Bennett, THE GUARDIAN 'This is an ambitious, important book, dealing with difficult subjects directly and courageously.'Jonathan Heawood, THE OBSERVER 'O'Brien constructs a narrative of the peculiar combination of emotional simplicity and complexity that characterises a successful fairy story.'Jane Shilling, THE TIMES 'IN THE FOREST is a sort of fictionalised inner exploration of an outer horror, beautifully written, but yes, dark.'MaryKenny, THE SPECTATOR 'I read it avidly. O'Brien had done us a service, without diminishing the dead.'Melanie McDonagh, THE EVENING STANDARD 'This novel, splintered in its form but coherent in its potency, is a persuasive representation of a desperado, of one who has despaired.'Lucy Hughes-Hallett, THE SUNDA

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

Really Powerful Piece 22 May 2002

By G. L. Smerdon

Format:Hardcover

At a time when gory stories of police hunts of predictable killers abound, it is a literary event to read a 'thriller' that is truly memorable. O'Brien's use of real events to create a novel that is terrible and tragic, with a protagonist that is an understandably monstrous, almost fairy-tale bogeyman spawned by a society dark in violence and retribution, is a feat only the best of writers could accomplish. The forest itself, enduring image in fairy-tale and folklore, is a central symbol, lair of the outcast Mich and home to Eily, victim of his wrath against the forest of the world that, unable to cope with its demons, has rejected him. The writing is taut and controlled, yet powerful enough to take the reader into the heart of the horror, to recognise it and understand it. This novel should re-establish O'Brien as one of the best writers of this generation, and deserves the highest recommendation.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

A disturbing read 2 Sep 2010

By Isola

Format:Paperback

This novel is set in the countryside of Western Ireland and based on a true story which occurred in the Spring of 1994; it's a deeply disturbing read and one I felt uncomfortable with.

A young boy, Mich O'Kane, unhinged by the death of his mother and abused by a priest, is failed by an inadequate welfare society and eventually locked up for a serious crime. Upon release he becomes obsessed with a young, red haired free spirit, Eily Ryan, who is living with her young son in a dilapidated cottage where he used to sleep rough.

Nick-named 'The Kinderschreck' (one who frightens children) he abducts his victim and child to subject them to unspeakable horrors in the woods. He then brutally murders them, along with a young priest he has enticed with a 'last rites' lie.

I found this novel to be a hair-raising tale; a confrontation between evil and innocence, with frightening glimpses into the killer's deranged fantasies.

The writing was graphic, indeed brilliant, with good use of myth, symbol and local lore but it was an ugly, repulsive story; tragically based on real life.

It may be insensitive to the grief of the victim's families, although I personally feel the author is trying to understand what happened, not exploit it. I just did not enjoy reading this controversial novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

The Dark Night of the Soul 21 Jun 2011

By Clive A. H. Still TOP 1000 REVIEWER

This book is full of a terrible menace, recalling Barbara Vine at her darkest as it digs deep into the disturbed psyche of a sociopathic killer. Michon is brutally treated as a child and, on being released from prison, he reacts by terrorising his local community, eventually kidnapping a young mother and her child and then a priest.

This is a deeply disturbing book, beautifully written and with great insight into the mind of a killer but by no means a comfortable read.