I checked this book out accidentally, or perhaps, saw it and couldn't resist it when I was looking for a children's book on St. Patrick. I thought I remembered that the Land of the Young is the translation for Tir Na Nog.
I read the first chapter, and it broke my heart. I assure you, if you read the first page you will be compelled to read the entire first chapter. It's about a shipwreck of Irish immigrants off the coast of Maine in 1848, and how the fishermen ran to their boats when they saw a ship in distress, and how they tried to save everyone, and how a man lost his life saving a child, and how she passed, anyway. After I read the first chapter, I said to myself, "I can't read this book; it's just so sad."
But later on, I found myself feeling curious about the book I wouldn't read, and I picked it up and started reading it in the middle or perhaps farther on, and I found that it seemed to be a domestic drama about a man caring for a girl .. but was caused me to read on, and on, was the prose. I don't know if it was sparkling, but it was good. It was plain and poetic and it made you want to know more.
I don't know if I will ever find time to read this book; I hope I do. The jacket flap tipped me off to the fact that it's a ghost story, and I bet it has more sorrow to dish out than that I've already encountered. I'm sure it's all about loss and how it haunts us and how the past gives us rich gifts and cripples us at the same time. And there are a lot of books about that subject. But I think, based on what little I've read, that Lisa Carey is a wonderful prose stylist and her book is one well worth reading.
I read the first chapter, and it broke my heart. I assure you, if you read the first page you will be compelled to read the entire first chapter. It's about a shipwreck of Irish immigrants off the coast of Maine in 1848, and how the fishermen ran to their boats when they saw a ship in distress, and how they tried to save everyone, and how a man lost his life saving a child, and how she passed, anyway. After I read the first chapter, I said to myself, "I can't read this book; it's just so sad."
But later on, I found myself feeling curious about the book I wouldn't read, and I picked it up and started reading it in the middle or perhaps farther on, and I found that it seemed to be a domestic drama about a man caring for a girl .. but was caused me to read on, and on, was the prose. I don't know if it was sparkling, but it was good. It was plain and poetic and it made you want to know more.
I don't know if I will ever find time to read this book; I hope I do. The jacket flap tipped me off to the fact that it's a ghost story, and I bet it has more sorrow to dish out than that I've already encountered. I'm sure it's all about loss and how it haunts us and how the past gives us rich gifts and cripples us at the same time. And there are a lot of books about that subject. But I think, based on what little I've read, that Lisa Carey is a wonderful prose stylist and her book is one well worth reading.
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