Review of THIS IS HAPPINESS
The title of this shimmering Irish novel tells it all ...
The last six years have certainly been the years of the Irish for me, both in fiction and non-fiction. It took my Anglophile self almost sixty years to visit the Emerald Isle and I have returned four times since. Such seems to be the enveloping nature of the Irish and their long, sad, violent, seductive, and poetic history. If Claire Keegan is the story telling heart of this history boiled down into a nugget, Niall Williams is the epitome of the Irish gift for the lyrical. His writing is gorgeous – at times, a little too much so. His prose flirts with tints of the rose or purple shades but always knows when to sober up. His characters are original but aren’t all Irish fictional characters? One could very likely say that this utterly engaging novel is a little too familiar, a little too … Irish? Maybe, but it is filled with perfect sentences, unforgettable people and one insight after another. There is the ring of scripture in its language as it describes a world and a young protagonist both on the cusp of change. While there might be too much lilt in it for me to call it great, I did not want to reach its end and I looked forward to reading it each night.
This Is Happiness
Niall Williams
2019 400 pages