“The place that lacks its ghosts is a barren place.”
-- John Hewitt
“Maybe if he had one more drink they’d leave him alone. Gerry Fegan told himself that lie before every swallow.”
“He told one of the prison psychologists about it. Dr. Brady said it was guilt. A manifestation, he called it. Fegan wondered why people seldom called things by their real names.”
I had seen “The Ghosts of Belfast” lauded in a few different places, with some clamorings that Stuart Neville had taken his place among the Irish crime writing heavyweights -- with his first novel, no less.
As we follow the search for redemption of an Irish hit man named Gerry Fegan, we can’t help but be reeled in by Neville’s gentle, subtle prose. Much of the book reads like a revenge fantasy gone backwards, a Dickensian plot gone way wrong -- but the tale incorporated a few unexpected elements, such as a budding romance and some paternal feelings on the part of the protagonist. Fegan’s unexpected emotions toward Marie represent his attraction to the outcast, the placeless such as him; yet it is in his surprising relationship with Marie’s child, Ellen, that the book finds it footing and elevates itself beyond a story purely about Northern Ireland violence and politics. Indeed, the moment when Ellen takes Gerry’s hand and forces him to embrace his humanity and vulnerability is arguably the most powerful scene in the entire book. [In fact, the European cover of this novel, titled “The Twelve,” is dominated by an image of a gun-toting man warily embracing a small girl.]
“Fegan battled within himself, part of him wanting to stay hidden, part of him needing to show itself.
“He surrendered.”
“Fegan had the urge to run from them, from Marie and her child, but the little girl’s hand felt good on his. His skin felt clean where she touched it.”
“He pressed the phone to his ear and closed his eyes. When she answered, he felt some small warm thing burst and spill inside.”
Neville does a solid job of sketching character through second- and third-hand stories, reminiscences, and memories, while his fine usage of short, clipped sentences lend a helping hand to the building of tension. Throughout, Neville’s writing proves to be good, which is surprising only because his normal shorter, matter-of-fact sentences are interspersed and broken up with nifty turns of phrase.
With some of these occurrences, Fegan speaks to a generation of Belfast young adults who didn’t grow up in the terror of the “Troubles,” who have no concept of the constant fears and tensions of those days. In a sense, Neville is speaking to the underlying battle between the old world and the new generation in North Ireland: the unforgotten vendettas vs. the hopes for progress, the unforgiven grudges vs. the pleas for better and more.
“He hadn’t considered himself a craftsman, more a skilled laborer. Not like those assassins who made it art. It only took a certain hardness of the soul, a casual brutality, a willingness to do what other men wouldn’t.”
“Fegan closed his eyes again and wished for another way. As foolish as it was, he wished for another life away from this. He wished for peaceful sleep and bloodless hands.”
“They’re a bunch of has-beens who can’t accept it’s over. Plumbers and bricklayers who call themselves soldiers. They’re no use to anybody now, just dinosaurs who forgot to lie down and die.”
As the blank spaces of Fegan’s past are gradually filled in, we begin to gain an understanding of what lies behind his lack of self-worth, his self-directed feeling that he has no identity, being or goodness. When Fegan’s thoughts of suicide are put aside purely because the images of Ellen and Marie came into his mind, we see that it is not Fegan that is protecting and saving them -- it is they who are saving his life, literally and figuratively.
“‘Everywhere I go, people know who I am, where I’m from, what I did, and they judge me for it. I guess that’s why. You didn’t judge me.’”
Yet all along, surely by design, Neville forces us to ask ourselves questions: How are we really supposed to feel about Fegan? To the issue of fault, why do the ghosts blame all but the one who actually killed them? Are we supposed to view Fegan’s eventual standing up to the ghosts as an act of heroism or cowardice? Should we really believe that this ex-con has given up killing, alcohol and the only life he knows so relatively cold turkey? What should we read into Gerry’s seeming awareness of his own steady slide into insanity? Do the merciful vibes of the ending jibe with the rest of the book? The conflicts inherent in the answers to these questions and our feelings toward Gerry truly formed the backbone of the book for me.
“‘You’re just a drunk who’s gone soft in the head. So you turn against your own just so you can make yourself feel like a big man again. Is that it, Gerry? Is that what this is about? You’re just a lonely, drunk has-been who’s nothing without a gun and someone to point it at.’”
Dominated by a Michael Vick-ish dogfighting scene, the ending and leadup to the conclusion felt a bit cliché-ish to me, and I felt here is where the novel lost a bit of its momentum. At one point, Gerry is slow to react when a golden opportunity is offered him to seize control, forcing us to ask whether his age and his shakes are catching up with him.
Yet the conclusion gains a bit of needed finality when the woman and baby ghosts -- who we are led to believe represent the good in him -- eventually turn on him at the very end, in a chilling and scary scene. The sudden disappearance of the ghost of the infant lends a bit of creepiness to the very end of the book as well.
“As she disappeared into the morning light beyond, she turned to look at Fegan once more.
‘Mercy,’ she said.”
“No shadow followed but his own.”
I have to admit that “The Ghosts of Belfast” lends itself to a movie, an opinion perhaps backed by the fact that Neville has already constructed a sequel, titled “Collusion.” Interestingly, in the acknowledgements, Neville thanks his online writing community -- a nod that truly puts this time in publishing and journalism into perspective. Elsewhere, there was a mildly off-putting grammatical convention (the continuation of a quote after an interrupting clause marked only by an apostrophe), but it was consistent, which leads me to believe it is an Irish or European stylistic matter.
With his gift for engrossing storytelling, versatile prose style, strong character-building and affinity for the region, Neville has ascended to a deserved lofty stature among Irish crime novelists. If my lone complaint was about the somewhat overused feeling evoked by the buildup to the end, that is certainly high praise -- especially for a first novel. I look forward to seeing Neville’s undoubted improvement in certain aspects as I follow his burgeoning career and potentially limitless success.
“‘God forgives all soldiers. John Hewitt wrote that. The poet.’”
“Everybody pays,” Fegan said. “She said sooner or later, everybody pays.”
No comments:
Post a Comment