Cross by Austin Duffy: A high-wire act pulled off with almost complete success

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Cross by Austin Duffy: A high-wire act pulled off with almost complete success
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This book is not perfect but it will well wroth reading, not least for its crackling dialogue, jet-black humour and characters that are memorable and complex

This book is not perfect but it will well worth reading, not least for its crackling dialogue, jet-black humour and characters that are memorable and complex. In a field crowded with contenders for such a dubious accolade, the tale of Francie battling against an emergent reactionary strain within the republican movement in south Armagh does not even come close. It is, in fact, quite good.

Duffy is at pains to make us understand the sociopathy of this, careful though he is not to paint Francie as indulging too publicly in his perversion. Rather, he prefers the quiet touch. “Triumphalism was simply not his thing,” we are told, and it’s this restraint that makes him both feared and respected among the other combatants. A Michael Corleone figure not given to extravagant shows of emotion one way or the other; just a quiet acknowledgment that the job has been finished.

Bodies by Christine Anne Foley: a slippery, shape-shifting story about the indignities of modern dating I would also say that the lack of empathy inherent in most of the book’s characters could be mistaken for a kind of pessimism about not only the Border but Irish rural communities in general. Whilst it is true that certain communities in the North were under the thumb of paramilitaries for many decades, the way we encounter that fear and paranoia in Cross seems to indict civilian locals almost as much as it does the combatants themselves.

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