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Sunday, April 23, 2017

Days Without end by Sebastian Barry

This comment was tricky to write. Usually my book blogs come pouring out, since I only write about books that I enjoyed. I did enjoy Days Without End, but this is a complicated one for me. I bought this book because I think that Irish author Sebastian Barry is one of the finest living wordsmiths in the English language. Please see my post On Canaan's Side. But, I had two hesitations.

The book is written in "cowboy dialect", for lack of a better word. I have difficulty reading novels in any sort of dialect. Second, much of the book is set during the American-Indian Wars and the Civil War, and neither is my cuppa java. But, Barry did not disappoint. The dialect prose was often wonderful, without being over-written. I was struck that Barry's use of this language also gives the reader great insight into the mind of the mid-19th century immigrant, regarding nature, friendship, and the manner in which people related to one another. This aspect was often quite striking. The voice of the novel is in the first person of immigrant Thomas McNulty.

The novel opens as Thomas, a young, starving, illiterate Irish orphan, and a new friend, John Cole, find refuge in a minstrel show in a mining town. The hook is that Thomas is dressed as a girl, a theme that recurs throughout the book. Thomas and John Cole become lovers and life long friends. This is slowly revealed in the story, concealed there as they concealed it in their lives. Their time in the army, another way to avoid starving, occurs first in the far west. The military's treatment of native Americans is frankly described, without being gratuitously violent. This was a hard life, often cold, still hungry, and frequently not quite sure about what they were ordered to do.


The Civil War brings them back into the Army, and again, a brutal life. The plot loops back to their Indian days, in a terrible, but believable twist. The aftermath of this brings Thomas to an unfair judgement. The resolution of this incident left me with a deep exhale. Barry is not just a great wordsmith, he spins deeply human stories.

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