A Goat's Song

by Dermot Healy

A novel by the Irish author of Fighting with Shadows traces the imaginary attempts of an alcoholic playwright to restore his ex-lover, attempts that encompass the Presbyterian and Catholic sides of Ireland.

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

416 pages, Hardcover

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

[Katia N]

This illusory world is a great dream, I won't waste my life laboring,
So I was drunk all day,
Lying helpless by the columns of the hall.
When I woke I blinked in the courtyard, A single bird singing in the flowers.
What has the weather been like?
The spring wind was asking the oriole.
Moved, I felt like singing,
Turning to the wine, I filled my cup, Wildly singing, I waited for the moon.
At the end of the song, I was senseless.
Li Bai

Li Bai (Li Po) lived and wrote in China in the 9th century. I was thinking about “Goat’s song” when i was reading this poem. The character of the poem is ‘wildly signing’ as well; maybe like the goat of the title of the novel. Geography, history, time. All of this should have created an abyss between these two texts. But it seemed as if they were written by the same person. No: the novel is not in the business of romanticising alcoholism. Not far from the beginning of the novel Jack, the main character, checks himself into a rehab. (There is a moving subplot in relation to this; and it is not what one expects: torturous but successful fight. It is something very different). What has resonated so deeply between these two texts though was this feeling of recklessness, crucifying beauty of external world and its indifference to human plight.

By all initial indications, i should have hated this novel. It is about an alcoholic writer and his doomed relationship with Catherine, his younger actress of a girlfriend. There is a love triangle: her, him and alcohol. Tolstoy has famously quipped All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I am not sure about the families: it might become more complicated. But i strongly believe that if we apply his view to dysfunctional he would be almost certainly wrong. These relationships are quite similar: two people cannot live with each other but equally the cannot live without. They hurt each other when together but they feel empty when apart. They do not give each other space, try someone else in vain or in revenge. They move in circle agony of love and hate and pay for every minute of intense bliss together with months of despair. Eventually, the one of them would find a way out and save both. One hopes. But the dynamics is still strikingly similar. It makes for a dramatic literature. Sometimes the author would add certain aesthetic effect that intends to make this suffering look more ‘beautiful’ on the page. A year ago I’ve read a novel by a female author who onomatopoetically described the sound of blood from a wound triggered by a couple’s spat. And that is why i normally stay away from such stories.

So i expected a similar stuff from this novel. But fortunately it was nothing like that. First of all, although the relationship is at the core of the novel, it is much more complex book. This is an impressionistic text; it is very carefully structured, a set of a nested narratives. These narratives are quite different in style and even the subject matter. The novel moves between the present and the past between mainland Ireland and the North. ‘The present’ serves as a framing device for rest of the book. At the end we end up in a circle. And it is so cleverly done. Also initially i’ve dreaded that all the narrative would be presented through the eyes of a needy alcoholic. But Jack is not always alcoholic and not always needy. And his perspective is probably about a third the book. The one of the most poignant and moving story within the story is told from the closed third person perspective of Catherine’s father, a failed priest and subsequently a cop in Northern Ireland. Other part is viewed through the eyes of Catherine. And she reads books:

Now Catherine pored over books alone. And it was not just a matter of losing herself – this she could do, but when she’d emerge she would feel transformed. A new dimension had been added to her consciousness. The characters existed more strongly in her mind than real people did. According to their emotions and their standards she measured her life and her worthiness as a woman. The afterglow would make her anxious – anxious enough to read the same book again. Finishing a book was something she never wanted to do. And it was not just being steeped in the character or plot – it was a fright to her that a feeble story could contain a truth that assembled far from the meaning of the actual words.

I remember myself as young woman experiencing a very similar set emotions in terms of measuring my ‘worthiness’ against the characters. Since then i’ve learned that it was wrong thing to do. But it was a steep learning curve. I wish young impressionable girls could avoid this experience. And i still have this feeling that a text might contain truth ‘far from the meaning of the actual words’. But i am not afraid of this. I actually admire such a feeling. I guess this little transgression was just to say that a book containing such observations could not leave me unmoved.

There is a goat in the book. There is also a legend of a singing goat explaining the title. I did not know that the word "tragedy" stems from the Ancient Greek word tragōidia, which literally means "goat song". The novel seems more elegiac to me than tragic. It seems there is also hope for all the characters at the end. But if there is a tragic element it is a tragedy of misunderstandings, of ordinary human weaknesses and their self-denial. ‘Let’s grow old and sober together.’ writes Jack in a letter to Catherine who is far away. And the next moment he goes out and buys a bottle of vodka.

The novel is full of understated longing to be connected with your land, with your love, with yourself and realising impossibility of this. The realisation that sometimes one needs to let it go to maintain some hope.

It has reminded me of Hopscotch where Horacio is looking for Maga and keeps missing her.

“Where’s Catherine?” the barman repeated his question. “I saw her here – when was it? – oh, yesterday.” Jack nodded. He understood. He was a day too late. This was how it would be from now on, he knew. They would arrive at a place where they thought they would meet. But they would arrive a day early, or a day too late. Soon it would be a year too early, or a year too late. But what length of time it was made no difference. He would imagine a place and go there to find she had just been, or hear, in the future, that she had just stepped through the door after he was gone.

It seems both Jack and Horacio have managed to find some solace in the presence of this absence. There is always hope.

Ps

In this wonderful article Cape Neurotic Molly McCloskey is remembering her friendship with Dermot Healy. They've met not long after this novel has been published. It is like a very poignant piece of fiction itself, only it is true. Her story is like a little postscriptum to this novel.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Seán Holland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastatingly sad, utterly brilliant.

[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

[MustangSal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book as Steven Manghan had reported it his favourite ever book at a Between the sheets roadshow. Truth is I never got into it, never bonded with the characters and never’got’ it. Is it just me. To me it’s a book about two drunk young peoples who love each other but play emotional games with each other. I stuck with it though !

[Raytown]

Fully appreciate Dermot Healy & this book's achievements, but for whatever reason it has little to no appeal to me. Some passages were gripping and will stay with me, but overall I found it boring. Gave up after about 150 pages.

[Julian Ridley · Rating 1 out of 5]

To get through the first 50 pages was too much labour for zero reward. Maybe accurate in portraying an alcoholic in despair- life is too short with & with alternatives on offer - so I left to go that way.

[Marc Faoite · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking masterpiece.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

[Y. Aun d’Ennui · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish. Some beautiful writing, but beautiful prose alone doesn’t make up for a meandering plot of an alcoholic playwright. I wanted to like it. 100 pages in DNF.

[Jan Draper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given up on Section 4, Section 1 was exhausting, 2 and 3 OK!!

[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.

[Chris Boughter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An all around excellent, yet crushing, book with some fun snippets about my grandmother's former home county:

"He had entered Mayo - a county full of graven images; pilgrimages with bagpipes, fiddles and whiskey; apparitions. The wanton songs of men and women. Images that should nowise be worshipped"

This excerpt is fun, yet from the only segment of the book I disliked. The flashback to the life of Johnathan Adams felt meandering, and only tangentially related to the primary narrative.

Overall still recommend a read!

[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.