A Goat's Song

by Dermot Healy

Jack Ferris, playwright, drunk, is mired in contemplative misery in a fisherman's cottage on the windy bleak west coast of Ireland. Mourning his love affair with Catherine Adams, an actress and Protestant from the North, he summons her instead in his imagination. In doing so, he tells the story of her father Jonathan, failed parson and retired RUC man, shamed into exile by a moment of violence in Derry years ago. Masterly, elegiac, A Goat's Song conjures the contrasting landscapes and opposing myths of a nation divided.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Novels, Classics, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 1995

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

[Belinda Carvalho · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A Goat's Song' is what I would class a perfect contemporary Irish novel and a perfect modern love story (by love I mean star-crossed love). The real skill in the story is the format, which flits forwards and backwards in time, between different characters and their perspectives but this is effortless. Healy does this with real skill. It's rarely confusing, always extremely literary but original and not laboured. The story flows beautifully from Jack Ferris (complex, alcoholic writer, fisherman, lover), to Jonathan Adams (RUC man haunted by his failure in the church and violence in NI. His desire to conquer Irish language and mythology) land back to Catherine (wreckless, beautiful, talented actress, promiscuous) flawed, real seeming characters caught up in their place in time, tangled by the politics of Ireland and NI. The book spins a modern mythology with the tragedies of ordinary lives reflected in it.
The complex webs between the characters become a metaphor, symbolic of the tragic relationship between Ireland and the North. Two places that can never be together and can never be apart. I didn't know a lot of the context in which some of the events took place and the book set the scene for these really well, which as an Irish person helped to explain this recent enough part of our country's history. For example, I didn't know how sever the tensions were between people and how opening your mouth to express yourself was genuinely dangerous. At times the plot can meander a bit more than I liked but this was a small flaw in brilliant book.
The scenery in Belmullet is like an added character, I loved the occasional references to goats throughout the tale too.
Additionally the book is a very honest account of how alcoholism can play out in Ireland and this is rarely confronted so honestly in our novels, films etc.

[Ade Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reviewer has been out at sea three days. I've been hurled and whirled, up and down and backwards all at the same time, been beaten up and chased by goats, and had three barrels of rum, gin, brandy, vodka, Jack Daniels, whisky, whiskey, potcheen and every other spirit of Irish moonshine poured down my throat. What a way to spend Christmas. If I recover I will say something about this brilliant novel.

[Seán Treacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Healy --- what a gifted writer.

A Goat's Song is free of those novelistic tricks and turns that make fiction laborious, free from that awful sense of writerly contrivance that pollutes so many novels. It's so full of irrepressible human truth and life.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have the Harvill hardcover edition with a blurb written in the inside of the dust jacket by Patrick McCabe: A fiercely passionate, gut-wrenching book. Its description of the west of Ireland is like no other book I've ever read. This is a book that will stay with you long after you've put it down.

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intensely personal, rambling, poetic book telling the story of an alcoholic writer in rural Ireland

[Wisewebwoman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave it a 3 as parts of this book were excellent, lyrical writing.

BUT and it's a big one. The story meandered. And meandered through lashings of drink and drunken fights. I didn't know what was real and what was imagined. And perhaps I wasn't meant to but it added to the confusion.

The good parts were very good. The description of the Northern/Southern Ireland conflicts, the differences in even the life of the towns. He catches all that and well.

The most interesting character in the book was Catherine's father, Jonathan Adams. I honestly thought the book should have been about him. A wonderful, complex character. Unlike the two leads who bored me with their endless drunken shenanigans and whining.

[Sanjuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply, this is one of the most artfully, heartfully, and masterfully written novels I've ever read. Healy might be the most criminally unsung writer of the 20th century. His prose is lively and crafted, and at the same time genuine and natural. The story is messy and at the same time seamless, and the characters are fully formed. This novel is deeply human, but so Irish that it could not likely take place anywhere else. This novel explains so much about the dynamics between Catholic and protestant in Ireland, and the political dynamics between Northern Ireland and the Republic, all while feeling like an intimate story of love gained and lost. One of the best novels I've ever read.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of all time. Pure poetic fiction about a drunk who has lost the love of his life. The sadness is so palpable - tangibly beautiful - the imagery will sweep you away. Simply put, Healy is a master with words and A Goat Song delivers in so many ways.

It's just one of those books I can never forget and think about often, for no particular reason, except for how well it's written. When a book is this well written, it doesn't matter what it's about.

I'll be reading everything by Dermot Healy, that I can promise.

[Emily H · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful books I've read.

[A. Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Healy writes of drink, of art, of sectarianism, and he does it without relating causes, without explanations or apologies. Instead, he writes about them as functioning realities, not telling why there is a Protestant/Catholic divide in Northern Ireland, but rather showing it in daily life. There are families, neighbourhoods, lovers, in this almost epic story set in village and city, North and South. A Goat's Song is an Irish tragedy.

[jinkiswinkis · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️college read⭐️

wooo so good !! reading irish lit makes me so happy i might scream eeeeeeeeeee

[Sarah Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bookclub read. I took a little while to get into this one but after a while I felt weirdly immersed in the story. It had a strangely woozy feeling about it - a sort of pleasantly drunk sensation. Sometimes felt frustrated with the main characters - they were self indulgent and not very likeable. Will sit with me for a while and needs to settle

[Kathy Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stuck with this book - it took me a long time to read it because I did not want to return to the relentless state of the main relationship. The middle section of the book about Jonathan Adams was slightly less depressing but overall this book was not for me.

[Marc Faoite · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking masterpiece.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading other reviews since I finished this has made me think that I may need to read it again. Everything positive that is written about it is true. It’s lyrical, it’s passionate, it’s raw and it puts its finger on human behaviours that you didn’t realise you even had, but, despite really enjoying it, I didn’t have quite the emotional connection as others which surprises me.

I can absolutely get behind the enthusiasm for it though and the way that Healy manages to get its various stories just right - from Belfast at its troubled peak to life in the isolation of remote parts of western Ireland. He also comes at these stories from different angles to what I have been used to - for example we see the Troubles through the family of an RUC officer. However it was his depiction of alcoholism that really struck me. Instead of the usual depiction of one sided violence or neglect, we get a relationship in which both parties are culpable and where the downside of alcohol is almost the banality that it inflicts on the relationships reliant on it rather than anything more dramatic and it is somehow all the more frightening and sad for that. Very much recommended, even if my reaction to it was not quite as effusive as others.

[Robin Ion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in Ireland during the troubles. A love story in which the protagonists struggle to live with each other , but can stand to be apart. It gives a powerful sense of the paranoia of the times - magnified by alcohol use - often as a way of managing the fear. I also got a very clear sense of how different life in the south and north were during over those years. Having seen the war unfold on TV, this novel helped me see the conflict in a different way where it's impact on everyday life was more to the fore. The main focus - the relationship between Catherine and Jack, is, in my view, superbly done. The highs are high and the lows are awful.
This will be in my top three for the year.

[David Boddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild, untethered, metaphorical and political. A tragic love, beautifully told.

[Simmi K]

The prose and history was quite beautiful I just can’t get myself to finish this book - it’s too slow and choppy for my taste

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack Ferris is an Irish Catholic, writer of plays, occasional crew-man on a trawler off the West Coast, deeply self-obsessed and quite a serious alcoholic. Catherine Adams is the daughter of a sergeant in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, who had been a Loyalist and a fierce Presbyterian. She is an actress starting out in her career which might be thought to supply a basis for a relationship and indeed, we know from the start of this book that she is acting a part written by Jack with her in mind. (There are no serious spoilers in this review - the book starts near the end of its story and travels back in time). But there are an awful lot of obstacles to this affair lasting beyond the early flush of physical attraction, a force known to undermine all sensible boundaries. It seems to me that the novel concerns the efforts by Jack Ferris to understand the nature of those obstacles and to somehow devise a path through them that might translate lust into love. In the process, we are shown many features of the sectarianism and that divides Catholic from Protestant in Northern Ireland, though it does not seem to me that the book is intrinsically judgemental or inclined to either side. The issues are just there in the foreground, dominating two lives in which politics has no part to play but cannot easily be escaped. This makes it a Romeo and Juliet scenario in some ways. The old stories are always a good model for the new.

I am interested in the language of this novel. On Christmas morning, in Chapter 6, Jack's alcholism is addressed and he writes: "He sat immobile in front of his desk. His mind was trying to make a leap into the dark but his hands would not comply. His thumb and forefinger were numb. If he tried to write they froze. And inside his head language no longer arrived grammatically, but surfaced as a series of bizarre signs." (p60) All the same, Dermot Healy sets out his account in the most grammatical and clearly precise terms and there is no question that he achieves his intended effect with great skill. I wonder if that explains why the book is quite hard work at times and took a relatively long time for me to read? There are signs at times of a struggle to achieve his desired effect. If the language in his character's head is not grammatical, why is the novel so grammatical? If it is a series of bizarre signs, then where are they on the page? Don't get me wrong here - I am not pouncing on a failing in the work of a very impressive writer and pointing out a blemish. Rather, I am thinking aloud and comparing this style of writing to alternatives, such as that of Eimear McBride in A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. I just find it an interesting idea to compare the two, the apples and oranges, the different aspects of the one great project, which is writing truthful fiction.

[Agponus Mupley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply astonishing. I finished it and immediately started reading it again (the loop-like structure invites such behaviour, but still...). An almost perfectly realised telling of romantic tragedy.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was one I had meant to read for some time and when I heard it being name-checked recently by Kevin Barry on a ‘Top 5’ books podcast, that tipped the odds in its favour.

Very briefly it’s about a tortured love affair, set mostly in the Mullet peninsula of Mayo but with excursions also to Belfast and the heartland of Ulster Unionism. The characters also seem to lead lives that encompass abnormal (ie, way too much) levels of alcohol. In fact it’s pretty clear that the main character is a full blown alcoholic.

I think the way all of the places involved are described is first class – you really get a sense of the elemental nature of life on the West coast and how the wind is ever present. In Belfast, there is a great sense of claustrophobic society, how everyone seems to know what the other person is doing (and what religion they adhere to). The description of the way that the female character’s father – an RUC man – finds a bolt hole on the West coast of Ireland is well handled and the examination of his prejudices and misconceptions is very credible.

No point in recycling the entire plot line, but I really enjoyed the way the characters were drawn, the sense of place (in multiple locations), and the way people talked was very true to life. I thought the descriptions of nature were excellent and the use of language was lyrical – there was a great flow to them. On the negative side - the book did go on and on and on a bit however, and some of the philosophising sections were hard to read. It wandered a bit too much for my liking.

So not an unqualified success, and not a book to read if you give up easily, but if you give it the time and make the effort it will give you glimpses into parts of Ireland and Irish society that don’t normally get this level of interest. And it is a very convincing dissection of a number of key characters and a sense of ‘what makes them tick’. A good book, maybe not a great one though.

[Carly Svamvour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nov 23rd, 2k14 - beginning a re-read

(just 'cause we don't like the current book discussion read for HP Library group in December - Tenth of December ... that's the title)

I remember this as being really good. Worth a re-read.

Jan 19th, 2k15 - better the second time around. I'd like to get some more books by this author.

....................

Jeff and I are reading this together. It's going slow, this read - we've been distracted by other reads - and, of course 'life' itself. Been busy this spring.

July 13th, 2k12 . . . we finished last night. Although it was a long read, we enjoyed it. It's true - it's about a deteriorating relationship, the reason largely being the affluence of inkahol.

I agree this particular relationship between Jack and Catherine (I keep wanting to call them 'Jack and Diane' - ha ha!), seems to reflect on the divided Ireland itself.

I think the political/social difficulties of the country may influenced the deterioration of the couple's relationship, but mostly, I think it was the drinking.

Too bad; we, the readers, fell in love with them once the story got to showing how they met, their backgrounds, etc. As the end pages neared, we found ourselves hollering into the distance at the couple - YES! QUIT DRINKING! THAT WILL SAVE YOU!

No one heard, of course.

It's not what you'd call a 'light read', so I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone.

[Naoise · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Goat's Song" is a weird book in that it can be clearly divided in 3 distinct stories which are only somehow related, but are very different one from the other. Furthermore, they are not presented in chronological order, it almost seems as if the original piece went through some cutting and re-arranging in the editor's room. (In fact I read in an interview of Healy that some editing did happen, since it was a lengthier work originally.) I even have the suspicion this happened so the least interesting third would be put the first, that in which the protagonist is on his alcoholic phase. I found that part to linger on unnecessarily and a bit boring. The second third is the account of a protestant policeman in northern Ireland when the IRA, and for me it's the most interesting one. A great read. The last third is a dramatic portrait of a troubled relationship, and some passages really hit home if you have gone through the same. I guess the same happens with other parts of the novel, as it describes a wide range of situations and feelings that can cater for anyone in different ways.
All in all, Dermot Healy's writing is magical and enticing. Draws a full picture of places, people, historical moments and relationships. There are probably autobiographical hints if you are interested in the author, which has been called one of Ireland's best.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very refreshing voice. Voice of an alcoholic, whose confession can hardly be grasped by anyone who has not gone through the experience themselves. Voice of a person who makes efforts to occupy the middle ground between two religious traditions in Ireland, but reapeatedly fails. Voice of a writer who mistrusts words. Voice of a man who is not afraid to live in a woman's body.
My eyes actually filled with tears as I was reading the third page of this book, so I was not sure what will happen by the time I finish it. The first lyrical part, in which Jack ruminates on his failed relationship with Catherine and, among other things, ends up in a psychiatric hospital, is followed by the second part, which traces the fate of Catherine's father, an RUC man, who becomes one of the main participants at the Bloody Sunday in 1972. This day changes his life and makes him search a refuge in the Republic of Ireland, where he tries to hide his identity.
The next part of the book concerns the tumultuous relationship between Jack and Catherine, marked by overwhelming emotions, alcohol and violence, until, in a circular movement, we get back to the beginning of the book, just as the high tide follows the ebb at the Mullet coast.

[Saul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterfully probes the way people went about life in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland during a certain period in the late twentieth century. The RUC, the IRA, Catholic attitudes, Protestant attitudes, the lives of theatre people, and the ways of a fishing village all come into play. The only thing that really anchors the novel in a time period is the fact that the main female character's father is a RUC policeman involved in a Battle-of-the-Bogside-esque riot in 1969 in which his behavior is exposed and he is forced to make life changes such as moving to the Republic full-time (to where he formerly had a summer home). He dies a few years later. Then the daughter, Catherine, starts the relationship with Jack, the main character, that takes them back and forth between Belmullet and Belfast. Presumably, they are together (on and off) throughout the late '70's/early '80's (one clue is a book of poems from that time period on a night table). The early part of the novel is some time after the part in the latter half, when Catherine has totally rejected Jack and he pines on for her. It could still be the '80's or it might be as late as when the novel was written in the mid-'90s. This is an excellent book that deserves a much wider readership than it has received.

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable novel, elliptical in its narrative structure and packed with passages of stark realism combined with imaginative flights worthy of a symbolist poet. The story centers on the doomed love affair between Jack Ferris and Catherine Adams, he an alcoholic playwright and some time fisherman from Mayo, and she an actress, fellow drunk, and something of a refugee from the Northern Ireland Troubles. The magic portal and turning point of the novel comes early, in Chapter 8, which ends Part I (the chapter is entitled "The Cockatiel"), but it is easy to miss the point at which Catherine decidedly ends their love affair, saves her and his life, and yet allows him to regain her in a manner befitting Proust, all in one fell swoop. As for the title, well, let's just say it would be a tragedy if you deprived yourself of enjoying this exceptional novel and discovering for yourself whence it comes. Harrowing, tormented, but full of life and beauty, this is a journey worth taking.

[milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

it’s definitely framed in such a way that makes it not for the faint of heart. id say as long as you can stick it out to part 2, you’re probably going to like this book. it says on the back that it covers the whole of ireland, and i’m not going to presume that i’m an authority on whether or not that’s true, but it’s the first book i’ve read since i got here that comes close. so many books i’ve read since i got here have been inaccessible, but this one is so much less so than all the others.

and the ending is very paul newman and a ride home, if you know what i’m saying. don’t know if i liked it but i appreciated the effort.

[Carolyn Drake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A windswept, tumultuous novel telling of the clashes between the different communities of Ireland and Northern Ireland through the prism of a doomed romance between Jack Ferris, an alcoholic playwright and his actress lover, Catherine Adams. You're never quite sure what's true, what's misremembered, or what's imagined, as Jack's wild, self-destructive nature is brought to the fore. The most intriguing and interesting parts of the book deal with the life of Catherine's father, John Adams, a retired RUC officer, whose moment of uncharacteristically violent infamy - caught on camera years ago - haunts him for the rest of his days.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I can't comment on the veracity of the elements of purely Irish history (myths and the Troubles) and geography, the writing itself is splendid and succinctly captures the intensely destructive flame of lust that is consuming both its main characters. Its Irish-ness is not alienating, but rather enlightening (as in, you feel enriched after having read it, not put off, as in 'I can't understand where this is coming from ...'). Well worth the read.