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Kwoomac

Kwoomac

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Slam
Nick Hornby
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Erik Larson
Heavenly Hydrangeas: A Practical Guide for the Home Gardener
Joan Harrison
The Uninvited Guests
Sadie Jones
City of Bohane - Kevin Barry Kevin Barry writes in a style that takes some getting used to. At first, I struggled to try and get a grip on his inventive dialog, but soon found it was best to let it wash over me, focusing more on the rhythm, the feel of it. The girls skanked in the wee hours to dub-plate cuts blasted from the Trace rooftops.

The story takes place in the west of Ireland in 2053/2054. The town is a poor one, divided up into neighborhoods which are then managed by local gangs. The Northside Rises have the Norries, the Big Nothing has the sand-pikeys, and the Back Trace, the Bohane Front, and Smoketown are all under the Hartnett Fancy. It's a depressing tale of once powerful men trying to cling to their youth, to their feeling of importance. It's sad to watch their lives play out in this tiny little corner of the world, where every minor move has major implications. It reminded me of gangs everywhere, so caught up in maintaining control of a piece of turf, that their lives become smaller and smaller as they focus on who did what to whom, who's getting too powerful, who needs to be taught a lesson. Big fish in a small pond. Completely oblivious to a world outside of their own.

Logan Hartnett is a man of about 50, who has managed the greater part of Bohane for 25 years. He also has been with the same woman for that amount of time, but has never felt content with the relationship. He's jealous and controlling and uses his gang to keep tabs on his woman, Macu. In his latest test of her faithfulness, he unknowingly pokes a hornet's nest, and what develops as a result just may be the end of him and his way of life.

Aside from way too many descriptions of the bizarre outfits everyone wore, this was a great read.