The Wake And What Jeremiah Did Next Colm Herron Books
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The year is 1968. Jeremiah Coffey is a twenty-seven-year-old teacher -- Catholic, conservative and plagued by guilt on account of his relationship with a beautiful bisexual called Aisling O'Connor. Aisling is everything that Jeremiah is not -- feisty and radical, angry and committed. She is a leading figure in the Irish civil rights movement and is planning to help organize a potentially explosive protest march inspired by the US black civil rights activists' Selma to Montgomery marches of three years before. The scene is set for a brutal confrontation to match the 1965 Bloody Sunday in Selma.
The Wake And What Jeremiah Did Next Colm Herron Books
True to the morbid nature of its title, The Wake: And What Jeremiah Did Next is a book that uses wry, black humor for its storytelling. Paying homage to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (a book which earned its reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language) Colm Herron enlivens his stream of consciousness story with a signature conversational style. His character talks directly to you, using an authentic dialect and a down-to-earth Irish wit, all of which brought me to laughter and tears at many passages. The presence of death sharpens his pen, and allows it to accentuate the his attitude towards politics and social conventions of the living in Ireland 1968.The contrasts are drawn as sharply as can be between the main characters: guilt-ridden, conservative Jeremiah Coffey, his bisexual girlfriend Aisling, who is a leading figure in the Irish civil rights movement. She is organizing a protest march, and the descriptions of it are shockingly real and gritty. “A girl was on the ground in front of us out for the count and this bullnecked man was still laying into her with something that looked like the leg of a chair.”
This wake is a literary feast. Five stars.
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The Wake And What Jeremiah Did Next Colm Herron Books Reviews
The Wake pulls you in. I started reading, and found myself going further and further, sliding easily into the characters and their reasons for attending the wake of a woman nobody much liked, using her death merely as the excuse to talk outrageously about whatever the conversation leads to.
So deft is the writing that you think you're right there, and the dialogue is so subtly Irish that you don't realize it's penetrating your brain and making pictures. Jeremiah, his mother, Ainsling... and a whole array of village characters all come to life, especially including the good Father.
The humor can be broad; the politics, for this American reader, get a little convoluted at times (my bad, not Mr. Herron's). The style is visual; you can feel the uneven legs of the chairs. Pull one up and listen in.
I was fully engaged from the first page of this highly unusual story. Author Colm Herron roped me in with his spot-on use of first person, Irish vernacular. His is a clever wit, told in the voice of Jeremiah, who unwittingly finds himself host of a wake for a local woman seemingly by default. The Irish banter of the characters at the wake thrilled me and were a clever vehicle in drawing character studies. Into this mix appears Aisling, Jeremiah's bi-sexual object of affection, and one he feels is worth personal adjustments. That Aisling is a political activist, and that Jeremiah goes along for the ride with an outsider's perspective was, yet again, another clever vehicle by this creative author. It is the end of the 1960's, and the civil unrest in Derry is told candidly and flawlessly. The Wake is a novel that operates in many levels it's language is compelling and tight; it's story is layered and bold, and it's feel is authentically Irish. I enjoyed this read and applaud its author! 5 stars for this book.
Maud’s dead and the mixed bag of characters at her wake aren’t likely to miss her. They have their own “troubles.” In a world that’s modernizing and leaving God behind, Northern Ireland remains in a state of controversy and confusion. Premarital sex is bad, Catholic priests deserve reverence under any circumstances, drinking to excess is acceptable–sometimes, depending on who you ask–and bloodshed is welcome as long as God is the reason. Oh, and let’s not forget that homosexuality is for heathens. So what is Jeremiah to do? He may be outwardly polite and slow to anger, but his debilitating obsession is Aisling, his bisexual on-again, off-again girlfriend. He’d follow her to hell if he has to (and he almost does), and along the way he pours a wee bit of whiskey, has a few laughs, begrudgingly tolerates Audrey, Aisling’s lesbian lover, and then Frances’s know-it-all ways and massive derriere, all for pleasure he considers the closest thing to heaven.
Colm Herron’s “The Wake” is a hilarious reminder that even a devotion to God can’t negate the fact that we’re all human. And when our habits are scrutinized and discussed in detail by our bored friends, relatives, and neighbors, no one, not even the Father Swindells of the world will come out wearing a halo.
'The Wake' (a nod to the nickname for Joyce's final novel 'Finnegans Wake' - cf. Herron's own 'Further Adventures of James Joyce) is a departure from his first three novels the autobiografiction of 'For I Have Sinned'; the metatextual and experimental 'Further Adventures'; and the Realistic historical novel 'The Fabricator'. 'The Wake' is by far his most accessible and light read the title stating tersely its two part structure. Part 1 'The Wake' (the hero attends, and organises a Wake) and 'What Jeremiah Did Next' (which is, precisely that. What he did after the 'Wake'). Within the first section, Herron contributes to the Irish literary tradition of 'Wake' writing (cf. Anne Enright's 'The Gathering' - although Herron's work is far superior) but his work is unique, and defines and details the unique 'Derry' Wake. The dialect is heavy, (mind you, the 'Wile Big Derry Phrase Book' can be an effective translator) but Herron writes in a style not intended to confuse but to make his text as authentic and realistic as possible (with its aesthetic of making Irish speech poetic, the Hiberno-English in Synge's work is identical in style). The second section (in a brave authorial step by Herron) is a complete retelling of the 'Long March' section of 'The Fabricator'; a plotline that reveals itself to us slowly, and its experimental stylistic concept (basically , that it is a 'retread', albeit the famous historical event is now told from Jeremiah's perspective), lends itself well to Herron's highly amusing dialogue and dark "Troubles Literature" subject matter. Overall, it's highly commendable (like all of his novels) on both of its reading levels swift accessible pure comic fiction and academic literature that deserves inclusion into the Irish contemporary 'canon'.
True to the morbid nature of its title, The Wake And What Jeremiah Did Next is a book that uses wry, black humor for its storytelling. Paying homage to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (a book which earned its reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language) Colm Herron enlivens his stream of consciousness story with a signature conversational style. His character talks directly to you, using an authentic dialect and a down-to-earth Irish wit, all of which brought me to laughter and tears at many passages. The presence of death sharpens his pen, and allows it to accentuate the his attitude towards politics and social conventions of the living in Ireland 1968.
The contrasts are drawn as sharply as can be between the main characters guilt-ridden, conservative Jeremiah Coffey, his bisexual girlfriend Aisling, who is a leading figure in the Irish civil rights movement. She is organizing a protest march, and the descriptions of it are shockingly real and gritty. “A girl was on the ground in front of us out for the count and this bullnecked man was still laying into her with something that looked like the leg of a chair.”
This wake is a literary feast. Five stars.
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