In the Province of Saints

by Thomas O'Malley

O'Malley sets a haunting local mystery against the tense backdrop of a country tormented by bloodshed and deep schisms.

In the tradition of Seamus Deane and John McGahern, a stirring, beautifully written, but unsentimental portrait of an Irish boyhood.

Thomas O'Malley's work has appeared in literary journals such as "Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Shenandoah, Gulf Stream, and "Blue Mesa Review".

Genres: Ireland, Coming Of Age

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2005

About the author

Emigrated to the USA at the age of sixteen.

Reviews

[Peggy]

I loved this book.

O'Malley is so meaty and descriptive in his words. I found this book so much more about the land, family, and situations Michael needed to find his place in to survive. His quiet moments were the most touching for me.

The novel does not mince words. This is poverty, alcoholism, death, crime culture and illness at its worst in some spots. However, there is equal amounts of beauty and perseverance.

[Joanna]

This book has been sitting on my shelves for nearly 20 years. That means it moved with me through multiple moves and was quietly waiting rediscovery. This was the perfect moment for this reader at this time.

The book is a book about a place (Ireland) at a specific time (late 1970s-early 1980s) and a small cast of characters, all told from the first-person perspective of a teenaged boy. The writing is vivid and rich. The characters are complicated, often angry, often hurtful, frequently depressed. But also, loving and kind in firm, rural ways. Also learning their place in a hard world.

The monochrome book cover is a good representation of the book--it's about hay fields and misting rain, lambs freezing and lambs being born, families telling their stories, fathers leaving for America, then returning, then leaving again. Through it all, the main character is coming of age in this world, trying to hold himself and his mother and sister together.

This book deserves wider readership. I want to put it in the hands of the right reader.

[Catherine Woodman]

Michael McDonagh seems to be forever attached to the land surrounding him. As he looks out from his small house in New Rowan, in the South of Ireland, he sees a setting of almost spiritual and saintly beauty. But amongst this beauty is a life of heartbreak and suffering, as Michael, his sick mother, Moira, and his twin sister, Molly, struggle to cope after Michael's father; Padraig abruptly leaves for America to find work. In the Province of Saints is an exquisitely written mood piece, portraying a country on the brink as its folk struggle with poverty, desperately trying to find themselves amongst the sectarian violence of the 1970's. Throughout the cold and the hunger, Michael gradually comes of age and learns over the course of several years what it means to be in love, to bare the scars of family illness, and also to see his loyalties towards his relatives' shift and change.

[Glen]

If Ingmar Bergman were Irish and wrote a novel, I fancy it would be like this one: dark, moody, relentlessly depressing, but full of pathos and passion, exceptional descriptions of land and weather, and strangely life-affirming in spite (because?) of the backdrop of constant pain--emotional, spiritual, physical, and political. Lurking in the background of the story of the family and the claustrophobic daily grind of Irish village life is the fate of the IRA prisoners in Long Kesh who starved themselves to death, one by one, beginning with Bobby Sands, in grim and disciplined defiance of a government deserving, in their view, of nothing but their spite.

[Jann Kostka]

One of the best books I've read in a long time! The author put me in Ireland, through his words I was there with young Michael. This was not a "pretty" story, it is a story of a harsh life.

[Sheila Cohen]

Interesting, well written book about a boy coming of age in Ireland.

[H.L. Gibson]

Everything that I loved about this book is what makes it so different from a lot of what is being written today. The characters and story are deep, rich, well-developed, so you'd better be prepared for the long haul. The description is intense and some of the best I've ever read. You can't help but be drawn in to the lives of the characters, the era, the country in which they live. The subtle mysteries are slow to reveal themselves but worth it when they come together in the end like interlaced fingers of one hand clasping another. A great work of literary fiction and coming of age story.

[Jannice]

This is a wonderful book. Thomas O'Malley is an exciting author who gives a wonderful feel for what Ireland is really like. The people really came to life for me and I had a lot of empathy for the characters. This is a great read and I will be recommending it to my book discussion group.

[Darleen]

Picked this one up at Dollar Tree. Will see if my dollar was well spent?? ha-ha. Of course it was, it's a book...

[Beatty]

Well-written novel about growing up in rural Ireland in the 1970s.

[Jessica Dumont]

This book is well-written but very dark and sad.

[Susan]

When you’re in the province of saints, you’re in a land where winter comes in spring; a land of stone and granite; an ancient land where history is myth and myth is history; a land of ghosts and martyrs. When you’re in the province of saints, you’re seeing the land through the eyes of Michael McDonagh, a boy growing up too fast, his heart a jumble of hot-headed love and hope and prayers and revenge and fear. When you’ve opened the pages of Thomas O’Malley’s stunning, lyrical debut novel, you’re in the province of saints in a country called Ireland from 1976 to 1981.