Days Without End – Review

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry has just won the Costa book of the year award. Barry is the only author to have done so twice, he previously won with The Secret Scripture in 2008. Although I have known of Barry as an author for sometime I had not, until Days Without End, read any of his work. I was inspired to buy the book after being told about it by one of my peers on the writing course I am attending. When I got to the bookshop I found they only had it in hardback. I don’t normally buy novels in hardback as they are just too expensive, but as it was my birthday I decided I needed to buy myself a present.

The story revolves around Thomas McNulty, an orphan refugee from Ireland’s great famine, who has made his way to America during its formative frontier years. As a teen he befriends another lad, John Cole, who is in a similar position and it isn’t long before they become lovers battling to survive under harsh conditions and in even harsher environments. Their journey takes them from performing on a small town stage for miners, Thomas in female roles, through to enlistment in the army, fighting in the American Civil War, battling Native Americans and on to a form of wedded bliss before their world is turned upside down yet again towards the end of the book. An older McNulty, through a retrospective narrative, tells us the story.

To say I enjoyed the book is not really correct, but I was fascinated by it. The book has many visceral, disturbing and at times brutal events and McNulty and Cole constantly have to fight for survival. The language reflects the people with oft times use of the f- and c-words, so if you are offended by that… A couple of the main things I struggled with were, firstly, the use of dialect in the narrative resulting in poor syntax and grammar, which perfectly fits the narrator telling the story (you can hear his voice in your head as you read), but for me broke the flow of the reading and I still wasn’t used to it by the end. Secondly Thomas McNulty is an uneducated, bread line orphan who, with John Cole makes some money along their journey, but it is mainly a subsistence living, yet as he tells his story he uses many big, multi syllable words that, to me, seem incongruous with the character. Granted he is in his 40s when telling the story of his and Cole’s adventures, but at no point does he mix with characters or a lifestyle that would facilitate this extra knowledge.

The descriptive writing is fabulous. You get such a sense of the scenery and settings, the moods and emotions, but be warned a lot of the mood and emotion is quite primeval and animalistic. One of the Costa prize judges was quoted as saying it was the best depiction of love in fiction, or words to that effect (check the Guardian review). I would take issue with that big time. The relationship between McNulty and Cole is a sort of love, but born out of the struggle for survival where the friendship of the two melds in sex and companionship. It is a basic, functional love more akin to the relationship between the two protagonists in Brokeback Mountain. Where the love of these men comes through is for their adopted daughter Winona, a Native American girl. I won’t go into how the men came to adopt her but suffice to say they were in an army platoon that, a few weeks prior, had attacked and virtually wiped out a Native American village, killing Winona’s mother in the process. From other reviews I have read many reviewers seem to have a fair amount of empathy with McNulty and Cole; I am afraid I don’t. I didn’t find them particularly likeable characters and the ease with which they joined in the slaughter of Native Americans definitely added to that. However, I did find them fascinating, well-written characters.

So the upshot of my review is that I would most definitely recommend the book and if you struggle with the dialect try to keep with it to the end. I finished it about 10 days ago and I am still running the characters and events through my head and for me one of the signs of a good read is that it doesn’t leave you the moment you have reached ‘The End’.

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. Published by Faber.