Thursday, November 01, 2007

Hellfire


Author: Mia Gallagher

Publication Date: 2006

Category: Contemporary Fiction; Irish Fiction

Who'll want to read it? Not the faint hearted.

Point of no return: Page 5 "Then I duck through the bushes and the willa trees and when I get ta the big stone where I left her, I stop and scrabble around for a while. There's nothin there. I kick the brambles with me feet, hopin for a sign, dried blood, bone, anythin, and even though I know this is crazy, it was thirteen year ago, I'm still disappointed, and the ghost beside me more so, when I find nothin."

Classic line/s: Page 395 "They say in the telly wildlife programmes a mother will do anythin ta protect its cubs, even tear off its own foot in a snare, but they musta made another programme for Ma".

Page 471"Then ya push through that line - how I don't know - and drop yer face, breathin in the scenta me hair, and then ya kiss me throat with a kiss that's got more care in it than anythin else I've felt in me life..."

What's it all about? Lucy Dolan and her growin up in late 21st Century heroin drenched Dublin. There's murder, there's maimin, there's torture and a Ma that had her first kid when she was 14. Ma, Granny, Lucy and little sister Sam all have the sight, but none can prevent the tragedy the story revolves around. I'm not sayin what that is, cause that would be tellin and'd spoil the whole book. There is love in the book, but the only romance is the tellin' and retellin' of the tales of Buck Whaley and his dealins with the Devil. Or is that Nayler, Lucy's one-time hero, her Captain, and his dealings...?
Publisher: Penguin