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Two Souls: A Novel
Robbie McManus is tortured. His psychopathic comrade ‘Padre Pio’ McCann is never far from wreaking havoc, his punk cousin ‘Rex Mundi’ has arrived from England and is getting in the way, his father is imploring him to finish his A-levels and get the hell out of Belfast—and then there’s Sabine, the mysterious loner in The Pound who shimmers, trancelike, on the dancefloor to the opening track of David Bowie’s Low . Her hair dyed jet black in a Cleopatra cut, she is a moving hieroglyphic that Robbie is desperate to decipher.
From the summer of 1978 to a frenzied Irish Cup Final day nine months later, and, through a series of smuggled ‘prison comms,' to the paramilitary-stalked Belfast streets of the late ‘80s, all threads collide in a tense, thrilling denouement.
At turns shocking and heart-breaking, Two Souls is a deeply affecting novel that crackles and enthralls, tragically exposing human nature’s futile efforts to make the right decisions and to choose a life worth living.
From the summer of 1978 to a frenzied Irish Cup Final day nine months later, and, through a series of smuggled ‘prison comms,' to the paramilitary-stalked Belfast streets of the late ‘80s, all threads collide in a tense, thrilling denouement.
At turns shocking and heart-breaking, Two Souls is a deeply affecting novel that crackles and enthralls, tragically exposing human nature’s futile efforts to make the right decisions and to choose a life worth living.
- GenresFiction
250 pages, Paperback
Published September 23, 2019
5 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Henry McDonald
19 books5 followersHenry Patrick McDonald was a Northern Irish journalist and author. He was a correspondent for The Guardian and Observer, and from 2021 was the political editor of The News Letter, one of Northern Ireland's national daily newspapers, based in Belfast.
He was born in a Catholic enclave of central Belfast in 1965, and was a student at St Malachy's College. He briefly attended Edinburgh University before gaining a degree from Queen's University Belfast.
In his youth, McDonald involved in the Workers' Party, a left-wing party that emerged from Sinn Féin in the early 1970s and was associated with the Official IRA. He travelled to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) with the youth wing of SFWP in the early 1980s.
After taking a journalism course at Dublin City University, McDonald began his professional writing career in 1989 at the Belfast newspaper The Irish News. He wrote extensively about the Troubles and related issues, with a particular focus on paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, like the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He wrote a book on the INLA, INLA – Deadly Divisions, which he co-authored with his cousin, Jack Holland. The book was first published in 1994.
McDonald also wrote on Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and co-authored books on the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and UDA with Jim Cusack. He also wrote a biography of Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble, a personal biography Colours: Ireland – From Bombs to Boom, and, in 2017, Martin McGuinness: A Life Remembered. He was, for a period, a security correspondent for the BBC in Belfast.
In 1997, McDonald became the Ireland correspondent for The Observer, and assumed the role for The Guardian in 2007. He was based out of the paper's London office from 2018 to 2020. He then returned to Belfast, where he wrote for The Sunday Times, and worked as the political editor of The News Letter, headquartered in Belfast.
McDonald's first novel, The Swinging Detective, was published in 2017, and his second, Two Souls, was published by Merrion Press in 2019. A third novel, called Thy Will Be Done, was forthcoming at the time of his death.
He was born in a Catholic enclave of central Belfast in 1965, and was a student at St Malachy's College. He briefly attended Edinburgh University before gaining a degree from Queen's University Belfast.
In his youth, McDonald involved in the Workers' Party, a left-wing party that emerged from Sinn Féin in the early 1970s and was associated with the Official IRA. He travelled to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) with the youth wing of SFWP in the early 1980s.
After taking a journalism course at Dublin City University, McDonald began his professional writing career in 1989 at the Belfast newspaper The Irish News. He wrote extensively about the Troubles and related issues, with a particular focus on paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, like the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He wrote a book on the INLA, INLA – Deadly Divisions, which he co-authored with his cousin, Jack Holland. The book was first published in 1994.
McDonald also wrote on Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and co-authored books on the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and UDA with Jim Cusack. He also wrote a biography of Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble, a personal biography Colours: Ireland – From Bombs to Boom, and, in 2017, Martin McGuinness: A Life Remembered. He was, for a period, a security correspondent for the BBC in Belfast.
In 1997, McDonald became the Ireland correspondent for The Observer, and assumed the role for The Guardian in 2007. He was based out of the paper's London office from 2018 to 2020. He then returned to Belfast, where he wrote for The Sunday Times, and worked as the political editor of The News Letter, headquartered in Belfast.
McDonald's first novel, The Swinging Detective, was published in 2017, and his second, Two Souls, was published by Merrion Press in 2019. A third novel, called Thy Will Be Done, was forthcoming at the time of his death.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 25, 2020
Amazing, I remember pitching book ideas on the same Friday in 2015 for Curtis Brown and seeing Henry McDonald's pitch which also got a like. It's a buzz for me, never mind him, that I've just finished reading this book! Its incredible: brutal but nuanced, polemical and intimately drawn.
There's much to recommend here, not least the sharply etched landscape of dystopian 1970s Trouble's ravaged Belfast. But equally that wasteland of teenage anxt and isolation that in this story sprouts seeds of jealousy, recrimination, revenge and division. McDonald navigate us masterfully through both via a weaving plot that threads between a year and a bit of the late '70s, the late '80s and the early '90s.
Though the very localised topography of Irish Republican socialist paramilitary splinter groups forms a backdrop to some of the evolving action, an intimate knowledge of this is not essential. The currents and concerns of Two Souls are inherently personal, tragically intimate. Anyway, you get the impression that, just like the rough punk protagonists, the author may require that you hang on, keep pace, stop moaning or f*** off if you have a problem with the difference between a sticky and an Urp.
Blurb praise rightly sells this as fast, funny and scabrous. It is, but it's also darker, and more textured and more tragic than a punk rant. It's a portrait of the end of today and the death of the future to borrow a phrase from the book. As someone once said, other places had the groups or the style for punk, but only Belfast really had the reason. This is the real thing.
There's much to recommend here, not least the sharply etched landscape of dystopian 1970s Trouble's ravaged Belfast. But equally that wasteland of teenage anxt and isolation that in this story sprouts seeds of jealousy, recrimination, revenge and division. McDonald navigate us masterfully through both via a weaving plot that threads between a year and a bit of the late '70s, the late '80s and the early '90s.
Though the very localised topography of Irish Republican socialist paramilitary splinter groups forms a backdrop to some of the evolving action, an intimate knowledge of this is not essential. The currents and concerns of Two Souls are inherently personal, tragically intimate. Anyway, you get the impression that, just like the rough punk protagonists, the author may require that you hang on, keep pace, stop moaning or f*** off if you have a problem with the difference between a sticky and an Urp.
Blurb praise rightly sells this as fast, funny and scabrous. It is, but it's also darker, and more textured and more tragic than a punk rant. It's a portrait of the end of today and the death of the future to borrow a phrase from the book. As someone once said, other places had the groups or the style for punk, but only Belfast really had the reason. This is the real thing.
December 22, 2019
Don’t know why nobody has left a review as it deserves comment ! Really enjoyed this.. I cant say i understand that society of the time.. i can see why a young person would be dragged into taking sides in that kind of world.. Very violent and also heartbreaking .. lot of alienation. Lot of hatred ... haven’t read anything like it for long time... great read !
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews