Fighting with Shadows

by Dermot Healy

The Allen family, in northern Ireland, try to survive the violence which threatens to destroy their way of life

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2015

About the author

Dermot Healy (born 1947 in Finnea, County Westmeath, Ireland) was an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He won the Hennessy Award (1974 and 1976), the Tom Gallon Award (1983), and the Encore Award (1995). In 2011, he was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award for his poetry collection, A Fool's Errand.

Healy was a member of Aosdána and of its governing body, the Toscaireacht, and lived in County Sligo, Ireland.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Ireland’s most celebrated writers, Healy’s first novel still seems to elude critical fanfare or reappraisal, in spite of a lavish 2014 reissue from Dalkey Archive. A highly poeticised family epic centring around the murder of a patriarch, Healy’s narrative freely wanders into the interior of its personnel in brilliant exploratory chapters of strange majesty and perspicacity, pulling the reader into a harrowing, difficult saga untethered to conventional narrative norms. The novel’s plotless, drifting feel might account for its unpopularity, however anyone with a passing appreciation for the heavyweights of post-Joycean Irish literature should manoeuvre themselves in front of this maddening, mercurial novel pronto.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

put this down for awhile - first 200 pages are a fucking marvel. then it moves away from the interesting stuff - hotel section didnt do it for me as much. but a beautiful beautiful debut novel all the same, i took so many photos of entire pages bc the writing and character were so stunning i nearly cried.