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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The Derry of poet Seamus Deane's first novel, Reading in the Dark is a perilous place. Ghosts haunt the stairwells of apartment buildings, a curse follows two families down through the generations, close friends turn out to be police informers and the police are as likely to persecute an innocent man as protect him. And hovering over all the violence, poverty and despair of 1940s Northern Ireland is the spectre of the "Troubles". The hero of the novel is an unnamed young man whose life turns upside down when a policeman frames him. Deception becomes his only means of self-defence. But the initial lie on the part of the policeman and the narrator's corresponding trickery are only part of the tangled web Deane weaves here. Early in the novel we learn that Uncle Eddie, an Irish Republican Army gunman, was blown up in the town distillery in 1922. In addition to sorting out his own problems, the narrator seeks the truth about his uncle's death.
Reading in the Dark sounds grim, and in some respects it is, yet leavening is provided by infusions of the Irish folktales and legends that inform the characters' daily life. And then there is the language. Deane is a poet, and his prose shows it: sex is like fire, "glinting with greed and danger"; ice snores and candles are swathed in a "thick drapery of wax". Readers looking for a thoughtful, serious and beautifully written novel will find one in Reading in the Dark.
Product Description
A haunted childhood, lived out in two dimensions. One is legendary: the Sun-fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly; the house in Donegal where children are stolen away by demonic forces. The other is actual: the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s; a place that is also haunted by political enmities, family secrets, lethal intrigue. The boy narrator of READING IN THE DARK grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing that they are intertwined in some mysterious ways that he both wants and does not want to discover. Through the silence that surrounds him, he feels the truth spreading like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, READING IN THE DARK is one of the finest books about growing up - in Ireland or anywhere - that has every been written.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's quite a while since I read this book and it still haunts my thoughts and dreams. A book that gives the average Brit some idea what it's like to live on the edge of war and peace, one community and another, the industrial and the agricultural economy, and the physical and the ghost or paranormal world.
Quite beautiful, and at the same time seriously disturbing.
Thank you Mr Deane.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Seamus Deane has written a masterpiece. This book, spread over thirty years in short intense bursts, combines the surreal world of childhood, the poisonous small-town hatred making pawns of the individual lives in Derry and the frustrations of a narrator maturing into someone more openminded than his predecessors. The bite-sized portions interweave as densely as a Rushdie tale but are as palatable as an Adrian Mole diary. Covering similar terrain to Angela's Ashes (with which it will inevitably be compared) this is a wonderful piece of modern Irish fiction
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a book which tells us what it was like to be a child trying to survive in Ireland when adults haven't told us all the rules. But when you don't know all the rules, you can make your own. I so wanted to be Seamus when out-foxing the police sergeant, the humour in that encounter all the better for being laced with real fear and the venom matured over generations. The family history which slowly takes shape must be only one of thousands, and which explains why The Irish Question is so problematic. The book is worth buying if only for the chapter describing the maths lesson.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Northern Ireland family denies its past
Reading In The Dark is a first person account of an extraordinary childhood. On the surface, the family seems to be stable enough. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Philip Spires
An excellent tale
This is a very enjoyable read. Written by Seamus Deane it tells the story of a young boy growing up in Post War Derry, and about the tensions in a city divided by religious and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by The Loser ladies & gentlemen
growing up in war torn ireland
this was a very moving book, it reminded me of Angelas Ashes in its content. The individual portraits of family are so real that it must be autobiographical! Read more
Published 21 months ago by crumblie
Depressing
The book started off OK, but there was very little of the light-hearted side of life. I found it very depressing and struggled to finish it.
Published on 29 Mar 2010 by C. A. Cunningham
Poetry and mystery
This is a poetical, touching and vivid evocation of Northern Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. But unlike other memoirs it has a story to tell, of a web of betrayal and deception... Read more
Published on 24 Jan 2010 by John Green
A joy
According to my lecturer, this is a Bildungsroman - a novel that paints a picture of the protagonist's development. Read more
Published on 24 Oct 2001
A Brave New Ireland
Reading in the Dark might merely have been one more "miserable Irish childhood" story, sandwiched between Angela's Ashes and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and dismissed. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2001
THE Review of "Reading in the Dark" by Ben Shackleford
Reading in the Dark is a novel about a boy who grows up during the midst of the troubles in Ireland. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2000
A worthy read
This book is a moving, funny and occasionally strange view of irish life in the 50's. It is wonderfully inocent. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 1999
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