- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre (23 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340822155
- ISBN-13: 978-0340822159
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,263,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'A terrific novel. In clean, precise language Wall lifts up the rug of stereotype and reveals an unseen side of his country through the story of a submerged soul trying to survive a world of bad drug deals, hired killings, and clandestine love. THIS IS THE COUNTRY stands out because it stares directly at the dark side of contemporary Ireland without looking away, or even blinking. In the parlance of the Irish, it's a mint piece of work. It deserves a place on the shelf alongside William Trevor and Edna O'Brien.' -- David Means '[Wall] is a powerful writer ... the prose style is punchy and accessible ... In THIS IS THE COUNTRY [Wall] has redefined a female icon, one you might have thought you knew - Mother Ireland. She is not pretty but she is utterly authentic.' -- Justine McCarthy, Irish Independent 'A genuine literary talent, with a poet's gift for apposite, wry observation, dialogue and chracter ...a masterful, ironic book of loss and bitter optimism, money and poverty, the impossible divide between city and country ... Wall has an admirable power of poignant description ...There are trenchant observations, worthy of Swift, on Irish society ... Wall's touch with characterisation is light and deft: many illustrate themselves plainly with just a few lines of dialogue' -- Guardian 'This tense and moving work sets the negative forces of power and corruption against the virtues of love and family. By turns gritty and tender, it is a triumph of survival against the odds.' -- The Good Book Guide
Irish Independent
'A raw and uncompromising but tender portrait of Ireland in the here and now . . . utterly authentic'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this book difficult at first. the narrative unfolds in a chaotic almost hallucinatory way for the first third or so, although this reflects the narrator's not very stable state of mind. But as he begins to "get his head together" the story line becomes clearer. By then I was completely hooked anyway. The voice is totally convincing and true to life. I believed in him almost from the beginning. What happens to him is terrible but true, and the writer makes it all somehow bearable with the beauty of his language. Wall has plenty to say too about how society organises itself around money and not people. There are very few books around that pack this much punch.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Imagine that you are in intelligent child but the only use you can put it to is crime. Being an entrepeneur means stealing and reselling cars. You have a foolish idea that love can save you. It happens every day. But This Is The Country isn't bleak because of Wall's elegant language. No matter how bad things get the poetry pulls you through. This book shows us how life is lived at the margins, in the housing estates that we drive around on our way to work, or the places we see from motorways and trains. The story is told by the unnamed hero in a fluid, slangy yet eloquent prose that manages to suggest more than it says. It begins in a seamy city housing project and ends in a seaside town. Wall manages to suggest that there's not much difference between the two, except that the people in control are different. In the city its the dealers, in the country it's the people "who own the view". In either case the marginalised don't count. It's one of the first books I've read in a long time that doesn't pull punches about the politics. Even though the plot seems a little overheated at times (hence one star short of the five), it seems that reality is catching up with it every day with gangland killings here in Dublin where the book is set. And by the way, it's also very funny.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is The Country has some really fine writing without any hint of self-indulgence and a good political sting. It has the feel of a real attack on the politics of the new Ireland, what one of the characters calls "an auctioneer's republic". It's a brave book from a writer with a good track record. I love the way he throws things at you - like the fact that every crook in the world drives a Merc. This Is The Country is full of quirky humour. Don't be fooled into thinking any of it is casual - including the poem at the start. The only accidents in this book happen to bystanders.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
This is not the country....
The strange and twisted humanity behind the criminality in Wall's characters brings home to the reader what unites us all, in spite of the insurmountable divisions and challenges... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Peony Grace
A flywheel of idleness just spinning quietly between things he had to...
You need to be robust, hard-headed and immune to bad language to enjoy reading this book with its adult themes and dark trajectories but the rewards are linguistically stupendous:... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Eileen Shaw
Fiction can be truth
If you thought that "Trainspotting" was THE novel about young people and hard drugs, think again. William Wall, a writer new to me at least, has just stolen Irvine Welsh's crown. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2008 by E. W. Collier
Addictive
This is a gritty, powerful read set in Ireland. The storyline is one that has been used before with a notorious estate, drugs and other criminal acivities going on. Read more
Published on 14 July 2007 by Kittykat
Edge of the seat read
I haven't read anything by this author before, but I'm going to buy all his books after this. It's an incredible read, an edge of the seat experience from beginning to end. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2005
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