The protagonist of Dwyer’s excellent new novel - part mystery, part examination of a writer in mid life crisis - Richard has his life unwittingly turned upside down when a new research assistant, Jenny, arrives to “help” him finish his book. They both know, though they leave it unspoken, that she’s there on the publishers’ orders to coax him along.
However, the work is quickly made less of a priority as sparks fly between the pair and they engage in an affair that results in Richard leaving his wife and moving in with Jenny. In the meantime, Richard has started having unwelcome visitations from long-dead American political figures in his bid to find out who killed President Garfield.
The grounding of an examination of a writer struggling with his legacy and health, along with trying to restore his reputation by writing a novel that would be explosive, makes more absorbing and compelling reading. We want Richard and Jenny to succeed on their literary mission, but outside of this it is much less black and white. It’s well paced, pulls the various strands of the story together well, and reaches an ending that is as shocking as it necessary.
An excellent voice, not just in Irish fiction, but fiction as a whole.
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