The photograph on the cover of this book is spectacular, and everything Mr. Brendon O'Carroll includes within is wonderful! This Irish tale is unlike any other I have read. The book is not cluttered with Irish cliché's, which even if true to one degree or another, can nonetheless become tiresome. It has often been said that there are no happy endings in an Irish tale, and while this is the first installment of three, it would take multiple disasters to change the overall mood of this Family and Friends.
The story is about two female friends, the joy they share, their everyday lives, and the pain that all relationships eventually suffer. However this friendship is not subject to damage or limitation. The dialogue is a riotous tear from beginning to end. Your own laughter will continually interrupt your page turning, but the intrusions are part of the fun. The characters laugh until they hold their sides, and you will be as well as Mr. O'Carroll's dialogue is brilliant. There is a scene when a driving lesson is to take place. If I have read better humor I cannot remember what it was.
The wonderful part of the laughter in this book is that it is not only for covering the pain of daily life. The lives you encounter are far from consistently ideal, but the laughter and joy these women share and spread is genuine, not dark, and not meant as emotional misdirection.
This is a brief work; however the Author managed to include so much more than emotional extremes. The 15-year-old eldest son of Agnes meets a man who offers him money for a job that makes no sense to the boy. Think of every negative direction this opening can take and then forget them all. Mr. O'Carroll takes this vignette within, "Mammy", and shows so much of what Humanity could be. The beauty of this mini-tale is that it is not the naïve thoughts of wide-eyed youth. It is a look at how people should treat each other, what should be important when we meet someone, and most importantly how foolish our normal reactions routinely are.
This is one very talented man with a pen.