Himself

"For the dead are always close by in a life like Mahoney’s. The dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales, which the dead just yearn to fill. For the dead have secondhand stories to share with you, if you’d only let them get a foot in the door. "

Mahoney, a handsome Dublin drifter, goes back to his hometown of Mulderrig to discover the long-buried secret of his origins. The townspeople believe his mother left him in an orphanage and then was never heard from again. Did she disappear and start a new life, or was she, as Mahoney suspects, murdered? All he has to go on is a photograph of him and his mother with a few short sentences written on the show more back.

Himself is an Irish Spoon River Anthology with ethereal descriptions and supernatural interventions. It’s charmingly rural, replete with folklore and eccentric characters, but also eerie with disquiet. My favorite character was Mrs. Cauley, described as a looking like a benign, geriatric spider, boarding in a house among toppling towers of books and old sheet music. She’s tart, but benevolent, and she can drink Mahoney under the table. She takes up Mahoney’s cause to solve the questions of his mother’s disappearance, and her money and chutzpah are just the motivation Mahoney needs. She knows that the ghost of her first love is lurking around. He often loiters in her hydrangeas while she sits in her garden plotting with Mahoney.

I was drawn to this book because of the Irish setting and the endorsement of M. L. Stedman (A Light Between Oceans). Several elements keep this book from being the usual hum-drum mystery: the gothic Irish setting, where the town itself is a living, breathing thing; the peculiar, enigmatic, and often hilarious townspeople that you get to know as well as your own kooky great aunt; and the fact that the dead of Mulderrig are also skulking around, visible only to Mahoney, indulging in their vices and prey to their temptations, even in their spectral forms. The writing in Himself is exceptional. It's rare to encounter such rich, apt characterization or creation of such foreboding atmosphere. There’s a ghost of a little girl whose tinny voice taunts Mahoney, the incessant drum of the bees who murmur about impending storms, and the trees who “hold their own counsel” and dig their taproots deep. They all portend murder as the answer to the mystery of Mahoney’s mother, with more murder to come.

4 stars for the story, 500 stars for the writing. As soon as I picked this one up, I dropped everything else I was reading. It will grab you from the first sentence and won’t let go.

Himself will be published on March 21, 2017. Many thanks to Netgalley, Atria Books, and Jess Kidd for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
This review is also posted on my blog, flyleafunfurled.com show less

Irgendwo an der Küste Irlands, im kleinen Dorf Mulderrig, taucht im Jahre 1976 ein junger Mann auf, der vielen Einheimischen merkwürdig bekannt vorkommt. Kein Wunder, denn der 26jährige Mahony ist seiner Mutter Orla wie aus dem Gesicht geschnitten, die in Mulderrig lebte und kurz nach seiner Geburt verschwand. Mahony wuchs in einem Waisenhaus in Dublin auf und ist nun auf der Suche nach Orla, was offensichtlich Vielen überhaupt nicht gefällt. Doch er bekommt auch Unterstützung - und nicht nur von den Lebenden.
Wer sich mit übersinnlicher, eher etwas weniger realitätsgetreuer Lektüre schwertut, sollte besser die Finger von diesem Buch lassen. Denn hier spielen beispielsweise Tote eine wichtige Rolle: "Die Toten zieht es zu den show more Verwirrten und Ungeschriebenen, den Beschädigten und Gebrochenen.... Denn die Toten haben gebrauchte Geschichten für dich, wenn du sie hereinlassen würdest." Mahony lässt sie herein (wenn auch wohl eher unfreiwillig), während die meisten von uns sie übersehen, denn wir sind "... mit einem beruhigenden Mangel an Visionen gesegnet." Die Toten haben sich ihre Eigenheiten bewahrt, vermutlich sind sie sogar noch verstärkt, sodass die Beschreibungen herrlich skurril und gleichzeitig liebenswert wirken (wie zum Beispiel Johnnie, der immer wieder nur halb bekleidet toten Zimmermädchen nachstellt). Trotzdem erscheinen sie wie auch andere übernatürliche Erscheinungen (seltsame Wetterphänomene, eine plötzliche Quelle in einem Bibliothekszimmer incl. Fröschen, ...) hier weniger mystisch als einfach dazugehörend; ein Teil von Irland, der etwas schräg und einnehmend ist wie viele der Figuren.
Was dem Ganzen zudem etwas Phantastisches verleiht, ist der wunderbare Sprachstil der Autorin. Unbelebten Dingen verleiht sie eine Seele, in dem sie sie zu handelnden Subjekten werden lässt: "Bald wurde der Regen selbstbewusster, platschte auf Kopfsteinpflaster, hüpfte durch die Traktorspuren in der festgebackenen Erde." oder "Und natürlich wussten auch die Bäume Bescheid, aber sie trieben ihre Pfahlwurzeln einfach tiefer in die Erde und behielten ihre Meinung für sich."
Doch was nicht vergessen werden sollte: spannend ist die Suche nach Orla zudem. Alles in Allem ein durchweg tolles Lesevergnügen! show less

Thank goodness for friends who bug you to read something you'd normally never pick up. I finally got around to this & what a wonderful, magical story it is. It begins with the premise of an orphan searching for the mother he never knew & ends up delivering a tale full of humour & mystery.

Mahoney is a charming young man who was left at an orphanage as a baby. All he has is a faded photo of his mother. Naturally he has questions & returns to her home town of Mulderrig to find out what happened. There he hooks up with Mrs. Cauley, an elderly actress who revels in shaking up the residents of this sleepy little town.

At it's heart, it's a possible murder mystery. But there's so much more to enjoy here. Mulderrig is not your typical village. show more It's a place where you might see frogs perform synchronized dance moves, trees eavesdrop on conversations & books can attack when threatened (do NOT piss off an anthology of Russian literature).

The prose is gorgeous & you'll find yourself grinning as you turn the pages. The cast ranges from sinister to downright wacky & the dialogue is frequently hilarious. And although many of the characters are already dead, that doesn't stop them from weighing in with their opinions. There's a strong theme of Irish folklore & mysticism that underlies the story & you start to believe anything can happen.

It's a book that is difficult to stick in one category & reminded me of The MIlagro Beanfield War & The Shadow of the Wind. Magical other worldly forces interact with the living & the result is a story that is touching & funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it & will now become one of those annoying people who pushes this on other readers. show less

This is probably the best cozy mystery ever written. Mahony* is born in 1950 and grows up in an orphanage in Dublin, but in 1976 he gets a letter telling him the name of the village where he was born and hinting that his mother met with foul play. So he takes his police record, his mess of long hair, and his leather bell-bottoms (ooh ooh oooooh) to the ridiculously cute coastal Irish village of his birth. Mahony finds it haunted as hell, and he sees dead people just like his mammy did, especially in the forest. There's an older lady detective who's a force of nature (a bald retired actress who runs half the town from her third-floor bedroom/library in an old inn), there's a subplot about putting on a play, there's scenery for days, show more there's more sex and violence and magic than in your usual cozy. There's a romance plot that didn't 100% have to be there, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment, just gave me a chuckle or two. The writing is amazing too, and I'm not always as attentive as I should be to the quality of the writing. The only problem is, I borrowed this from the library but now I really want to buy it. I will be reading more of Jess Kidd's work.

*MAH-hinny, according to an audiobok reader by way of this review, but what do I know—I'm hardly Irish at all. show less

This combination of murder mystery, James Joyce short story, Irish bar yarn, and folklore is very charming. But what stands out most for me are the occasional soaring flights of Irish-infused prose that have an extraordinary power of both conjuring a place and enchanting the reader.

Mahony, 26, is a petty thief who grew up in a harsh Dublin orphanage, having been abandoned there as an infant. Upon the death of a nun there in charge of his case, one of the priests gives him a note in an envelope inscribed “For when the child is grown.” It reads:

“Your name is Francis Sweeney. Your mammy was Orla Sweeney. You are from Mulderrig, Co. Mayo. . . . For your information, she was the curse of the town, so they took her from you. They all show more lie, so watch yourself, and know that your mammy loved you.”

Mahony decides to skip parole and return to the village of his birth, Mulderrig (an imaginary village set in County Mayo), to find out about his mother and what really happened to her.

The plot shifts between 1950, when Mahony was born, to 1976, when he returns to Mulderrig. Mulderrig, the author writes, is a place like no other:

“Here the colors are a little bit brighter and the sky is a little bit wider. Here the trees are as old as the mountains and a clear river runs into the sea. People are born to live and stay and die here. They don’t want to go. Why would they when all the roads that lead to Mulderrig are downhill so that leaving is uphill all the way?”

And about the town the author asks:

“Didn’t St. Patrick himself admire Mulderrig’s trees whilst chasing troublesome snakes about the place? And didn’t he bless the forest as he lashed through the undergrowth?”

After a storm in Mulderrig, the author writes:

“In the field a flyblown sheep is lullabied by gentle breezes, her rinsed wool lifting. She’s an earthbound cloud! . . . The crows picking over the flooded fields are dancing the fandango and the farmers that applaud them are their biggest fans.”

Mulderrig is magical for another reason. It’s inhabitants include both the living and the dead, and Mahony sees them all. The dead characters are almost as real as those who are living, and just as delightful. They are always close to someone like Mahony, the author writes:

“The dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales, which the dead just yearn to fill. For the dead have second-hand stories to share with you, if you’d only let them get a foot in the door.”

The village harbors some evil individuals bent on revenge but also some brave and loving people who are dedicated to justice. The good people in the village are drawn to Mahony just as the dead are, and they all endeavor to help him. When Mahony comes to Mulderrig, the dead know they will finally be recognized: “They only want to be seen.”

Mahony’s primary partner in his quest to find out what happened to his mother is the woman who lives in the boarding house where he takes up residence. Mrs. Cauley is a former actress - “once one of the greatest actresses to grace the stage of the Abbey Theatre” - who still has a flair for drama and performance, and who immediately takes a shine to Mahony. The feeling is mutual; Mahony comes to adore both her and her deceased former lover, Johnnie, who watches over Mrs. Cauley.

Mr. Cauley explains to Mahony, “Orla Sweeney was the wild bad girl of the village. By the time she was sixteen she was knocked up, unwed, and Mulderrig’s dirty little secret.” No one knew who the father was. Many villagers hated her because she refused to live by the rules, and she tempted the men away from their wives.

The village girls all look at the handsome, dark-eyed newcomer in much the way their fathers must have looked at Orla. Even the older women find themselves smiling at him. His charm beguiles them, but not all of them; not the ones who remember his mother and wanted her gone.

Mrs. Cauley decides the best way to ferret out the truth is to question villagers during auditions for her annual play to raise money for the church. This year the play is to be “The Playboy of the Western World” by John Millington Synge. ["The Playboy of the Western World" is set in a pub in County Mayo during the early 1900s. The comedy tells the story of a lonely dreamer named Christy Mahon who wanders into a pub, claiming that he has killed his father.] She tells the villagers that “Mahony here has agreed to grace our stage as our very own Dublin playboy.” The excitement of someone new and the opportunity to be in a play with him brings out the crowds. And when he comes out on stage, they shout: “Here he is now. Here’s himself.”

Sure enough, the truth starts coming out in small bits, as the list of suspects for Orla's murder shortens. Mrs. Cauley’s “investigation team” is joined by Shauna, who takes care of the boarding house and who is falling for Mahony, and Bridget Doosey, the remarkable woman who works for Father Quinn, the smarmy corrupt priest of the village.

As they try to come up with the possible guilty party, Bridget asks: “Who would Orla really annoy?” Mrs. Cauley responds with her dead-on powers of observation: “The sanctimonious, the bigoted, and the pious.” A man who embodies all three traits, Father Quinn, tries to lead the villagers to shun Mahony. As Mrs. Cauley explains to Mahony: “Fear, guilt, and superstition, Mahony, it’s a fine way to steer the herd. It always has been.”

She says further: “It is a truth universally unacknowledged that when the dead are trying to remember something, the living are trying harder to forget it."

Meanwhile, Shauna doesn’t want to be thinking about Mahony all the time, but can’t help it: “She’s put him out like a cat a million times but like a cat he has a habit of slinking back and curling up in the warm corners of her mind.”

As the exciting denouement approaches, you can’t be sure who will make it out of the final confrontation alive.

Discussion: There are some great characters in this book. Mrs. Cauley - hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, funny, and wise - is unforgettable, as is the surprisingly brave, enterprising, and mischievous Bridget. Some of the dead, including Johnny, a little girl named Ida, and the priest who served before Father Quinn, are also great characters.

Evaluation: I wouldn’t identify this primarily as a crime story, although it certainly is that. But it struck me more as Irish storytelling at its finest (of one of the characters, another says, “Ah, watch it. Half the lies [he] says aren’t true.”); an Irish folktale that conveys exuberant celebration of life, and the enduring power of love, by both the living and the dead.

Note: Jim enjoyed this book a great deal also, which is saying a lot given the inclusion of dead characters. show less

HIMSELF is one of the most unusual mysteries I’ve read; the experience was like getting pulled into a vivid 20th century Irish folk tale. Set in the small village of Mulderrig, this wild story alternates between the 1970s and 1940s/50s. Mahony grew up in a Dublin orphanage, with very few clues about his beginning. When he finally gets a lead, 26-year old Mahony travels back to Mulderrig determined to find out what became of this mother, stirring up all kind of chaos in the process. The book is full of quirky, funny, tragic characters, both living and dead. Mahony can communicate with the dead, sometimes they’re helpful, other times not so much. Loved that Mahony was referred to as “a [County] Mayo Heathcliff.” I enjoyed the show more blending of magical realism into the twisted mystery. The lyrical language and dark humor were also a delight. Impressive debut!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. show less

Mahoney was dropped off at a Dublin orphanage when he was just a baby. Now, 26 years later, he has come into possession of a note that tells him of his mother's name and where she was from. Mahoney decides to return to the small, west coast Irish town of Mulderrig to see if he can figure out the truth of his mother. However, Orla Sweeney was a blight on the town of Mulderrig and most of the folks are glad to have her gone, by whatever means. Orla and her son share the gift of ghosts-and the ghosts tell secrets about the townsfolk. When Mahoney returns and reveals his parentage, many of the townsfolk are put out and don't want the memories of Orla to return. With the help of an aging thespian, Mrs. Cauley, Mahoney will use his gifts and show more the town's fear to find out what happened to his mother.

Himself is an amazing story of mystery, secrets, acceptance and a bit of magic. I was immediately pulled in from the beginning when we see Orla's murder and Mahoney's return to the strange town. I was especially interested in all of the ghosts that Mahoney is able to see and loved his interactions with them, especially Ida. Mahoney's journey took me to a beautiful and haunting Irish town in 1976. From an enchanted forest to a low-tide island and magnificent old buildings, reveal Mulderrig's appeal. Even more than the setting, the cast of characters is expertly drawn. Both the living and the dead receive full attention in the hunt for revealing Orla's fate. For me, Mrs. Cauley stole the show with her straightforward attitude and unrelenting will. I am in love with her comebacks and her promptly placed farts in church. The mystery of who exactly killed Orla kept me reading. I really wanted Mahoney to connect with his mother's ghost. I do wish there was more of a resolve there, but the ending was still satisfying. The mix of history, mystery, and grand characters sprinkled with a bit of supernatural created a wonderful world that I absolutely could not put down.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. show less