I went into the main library in Barnsley town centre when I was there with Lee, and picked up a couple of books. It's a new building, woven into the new piazza that the council made a few years ago, so it's really easy to get to and accessible. I love the displays they have in there and often like to have a look if I'm in the area. I picked up this book and a middle grade children's book that I haven't read yet so I've renewed it a couple of times.
This is a really understated novella and I really liked it. It reminded me of Claire Keegan and similar authors - there's as much in what's not said as there is in what is said.
Ian is seventeen and living in Ireland when he goes to live with his dad's cousin in London. Tommy is thirty and a jobbing actor, and dashing and charismatic. It is 1989 and Ian is sheltered and shy. But he and Tommy stay up all night and gad about London and really Ian falls in love.
They meet again in Dublin fifteen years later, briefly, when Ian is a Benedictine monk known as Brother Eugene, and Tommy is still a jobbing actor, still treating women badly, still dashing and charismatic.
They meet finally when Tommy is sixty and celebrating his birthday, but he's also dying.
It's a lovely book, very undersold and written in such a longing fashion that it made me ache. I'm giving it four out of five and would definitely read something else by Andrew Meehan in the future.
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