He has followed this clan across the world and over many decades.
The McNultys, a familiar family in much of Barry’s work, have a cameo in Old God’s Time. She has compiled a secret memoir whose truthfulness is questioned by the novel. The pain compounds across generations.īarry skilfully used this kind of narrative tentativeness in The Secret Scripture (2008) in which Roseanne McNulty has been institutionalised for 50 years. He gets his own story out of himself like blood out of a stone. He is not the unreliable narrator so often used in fiction. Over time, it will become impossible to doubt him. Nor death, as long as they are not dying.”īut Tom does have memories, and the reader is asked to walk a fine line between trust and distrust. Often enough, his thoughts, unencumbered by memory, land in profound places: “No one minds life as long as they are not trying to leave it. “A date in Ireland is a bothering thing,” he muses, his confusion leading to a deeper lucidity. He can’t find his toothbrush and substitutes his finger to clean his teeth.
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