Kirkus
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A father and son stumble on an ancient Irish sacred site, with lasting consequences. It’s 1865 when the normally taciturn Tomás reels out of a mysterious wooded copse in rural Ireland, babbling nonstop. He and his 10-year-old son, Liam, have been surveying for the hated British, who need native speakers to learn place names and boundaries from the locals, then render them into English. But now, as he tells his pregnant wife, Phina, and daughters, Enda and Rose, back in Dublin, he plans to give up that job to make “a map of how this land really is, of how it has always been, of what lies beneath whatever order or disorder others might impose upon it.” Oh, and he has taken their life savings to lease land near the copse from a local aristocrat; they will live in a ruined cottage, abandoned years ago during the Great Hunger that emptied the Irish landscape and sent Tomás and Phina as children to a grim workhouse. This is the dramatic premise of O’Farrell’s evocative and impassioned 10th novel. After Tomás’ baffling announcement, the narrative rewinds some millennia to reveal the copse as the source of a spring with magical powers, in which a young girl finds a ring that belonged to her vanished father, the last of Ireland’s original inhabitants. Back in the 19th century, baby Eugene, born in the family’s new home, “is not as other children”; he never speaks and appears to have mystical understanding. He and his siblings, each a skillfully drawn individual, forge separate destinies over the following decades, embodying O’Farrell’s key themes: the conflict between Catholicism and ancient ways, the subjugation of women, the brutality of the English ruling class, the people’s connection to the land. A gruesome exorcism is the first of many disasters that befall the family—so many that only O’Farrell’s pungent reminders of Ireland’s long and tragic history keep the litany of sorrows from seeming excessive. The radiant closing pages offer a measure of relief from the generally dark tone. Steeped in Irish history and folklore, alive with a sense of wonder. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.