Carn

by Patrick McCabe

‘It seemed as if the town of Carn, a huddled clump of windswept grey buildings split in two by a muddied main street, had somehow been spirited away and supplanted by a thriving, bustling place which bore no resemblance whatever to it. For a split second, she saw her own death, a gunmetal face fixed on the sky, all around the faces and voices of Carn as she had known it. Josie Keenan had come home to the town of Carn, the only home she knew’ ‘A unique record by somebody who understands that the reality of small-town life is as important in literature as any aspect of Ireland . . . a savage, raw and bitter honesty . . . I know no Irish writer with such an obvious, extraordinary talent’ Dermot Bolger, Sunday Independent ‘Powerful, precise writing – Patrick McCabe’s Carn introduces one of the most promising writers in a long, long time’ Bill Buford, Granta ‘Resolute . . . the writing is raw and didactic. His story bears the hideous ring of authenticity’ Guardian ‘Stylishly narrated, but with the chronological forthrightness that comes as a benison after some modern novels’ London Review of Books

Genres: Fiction, Irish Literature, Ireland

252 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Patrick McCabe came to prominence with the publication of his third adult novel, The Butcher Boy, in 1992; the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in Britain and won the Irish Times-Aer Lingus Prize for fiction. McCabe's strength as an author lies in his ability to probe behind the veneer of respectability and conformity to reveal the brutality and the cloying and corrupting stagnation of Irish small-town life, but he is able to find compassion for the subjects of his fiction. His prose has a vitality and an anti-authoritarian bent, using everyday language to deconstruct the ideologies at work in Ireland between the early 1960s and the late 1970s. His books can be read as a plea for a pluralistic Irish culture that can encompass the past without being dominated by it.

McCabe is an Irish writer of mostly dark and violent novels of contemporary, often small-town, Ireland. His novels include The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written a children's book (The Adventures of Shay Mouse) and several radio plays broadcast by the RTÉ and the BBC Radio 4. The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto have both been adapted into films by Irish director Neil Jordan.

McCabe lives in Clones, Co. Monaghan with his wife and two daughters.

Pat McCabe is also credited with having invented the "Bog Gothic" genre.

Reviews

[Matthew Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one's kind of a downer.

[William A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed "Carn" quite a lot. McCabe starts several story threads then weaves them together to tell the story of small town on the northern border of Ireland spanning the 1950s to the 1970s. The characters are well composed, especially the female characters, and the pain and small joys of their mutual existence are carefully crafted, drawing in the reader. In turn, each major character dares to hope for something better than life in Carn, or for a better life in Carn. Fate, however, has other ideas. I do recommend this book, primarily because of the character development and the snapshot glimpses into life in smalltown Ireland during a tumultuous era. It reads rather quickly and McCabe certainly doesn't drone on or pontificate. He just lays it our there for you digest and consider.

[Hilary Carpenter]

Does anyone want this? It's fantastic. My friend gave it to me, and I want to pay it forward.

[Derek Bridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This early McCabe work is different from his more recent stuff. Its focus is small-town Ireland, but as a mirror to wider events, from the 1960s onwards. Identities are formed, loyalties defined, dreams shattered. Everyone is damaged, but there is a variety of leading characters that sets this apart from later McCabe works, which tend to inhabit the unhinged minds of a single protagonist.

[Stephen McNamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this. A visceral tale of life in small Irish 'border' town brilliantly realised.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the way this started by flinging you in at the deep end. Each chapter seemed largely unconnected to the one before - feeling almost like a short story collection. Until after a handful of chapters people started to reappear.

A well told tale with a great sense of things coming full circle by the end. Well handled different character types. And a genuine sense of tension as the climax approached.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A harsh book that totally engulfed me while I read it, leaving me as miserable as the characters in the book were.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The town of Carn is dying. The inhabitants just don't know it yet. The decline is witnessed by both Josie Keenan, a perpetual outsider and fallen woman, and Sadie Rooney, who has dreamt of leaving all her life.

McCabe sets his scene quickly and confidently, relying on readers' recollections of an Ireland fading even at the time of writing. He captures that strange pride and hypocrisy which was often present and always ignored in small town life.

[Matthew Reads Junk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book about miserable Irish people. Toss in some literary devices but otherwise it's nothing new.

[Tom Crilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a great story that displays how uniform and uncontrollable life and places can be, great anecdote about how political views can be rapidly changed based on things that are not wholly accurate