I think I first began to be interested in Tana French as an author when I saw that folks at my library were reading her two earlier books, The Likeness and In the Woods.
I became more interested when I realized that she writes mysteries.
So I brought home Faithful Place as part of the usual stack of books I bring home but may or may not read.
I've just been surfing the web, and came across a short piece on Agatha Christie by Nicholas Blincoe. He points out that Edmund Wilson criticized her work for its apparent contentment at remaining at the surface of things: "Christie has no interest in dramatising the emotional impact of events on her characters."
The opposite is true of French's Faithful Place, and that's ultimately what I love about it. Central character Frank's emotions are patiently dissected as they flow and change, as he reminisces about the past that resurfaces in the novel, his obsessive first love and his very complicated feelings about his family.
That is what I love about the novel. That the novel is partly about coming to terms with one's difficult childhood, as well as the painful loss of first love and the difficulty of letting go, add to its appeal to me. Frank's a plenty complicated guy; the world he used to inhabit so complicated that Frank considers at least four suspects for a recently rediscovered murder. And, Frank is dynamic -- the action of the novel changes him by the end.
Finally, French has an ear. She has a gift for dialogue so lifelike that I found myself adopting some Dublin speech mannerisms. And the Dublin language she recreates here is especially vivid.
I became more interested when I realized that she writes mysteries.
So I brought home Faithful Place as part of the usual stack of books I bring home but may or may not read.
I've just been surfing the web, and came across a short piece on Agatha Christie by Nicholas Blincoe. He points out that Edmund Wilson criticized her work for its apparent contentment at remaining at the surface of things: "Christie has no interest in dramatising the emotional impact of events on her characters."
The opposite is true of French's Faithful Place, and that's ultimately what I love about it. Central character Frank's emotions are patiently dissected as they flow and change, as he reminisces about the past that resurfaces in the novel, his obsessive first love and his very complicated feelings about his family.
That is what I love about the novel. That the novel is partly about coming to terms with one's difficult childhood, as well as the painful loss of first love and the difficulty of letting go, add to its appeal to me. Frank's a plenty complicated guy; the world he used to inhabit so complicated that Frank considers at least four suspects for a recently rediscovered murder. And, Frank is dynamic -- the action of the novel changes him by the end.
Finally, French has an ear. She has a gift for dialogue so lifelike that I found myself adopting some Dublin speech mannerisms. And the Dublin language she recreates here is especially vivid.
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