A Year in the Province

I love comic novels: Westlake, Hiassen, Dorsey . . . But they usually have murder and mayhem as ingredients. Not "A Year in the Province." It is the delightfully told story of a [as the chief protagonist would put it] family of Spanish's jinxes high in Belfast. Protagonist Jesus Sanchez Ventura has [again in his words] a high fluting sense of himself, his Spanish repast, and his goal to romp like a gaily man through the paths of Belfast, Protestants or no Protestants. Adapting the local accent, and his wife adopting the commercial ways of Northern most Protestant regions, with his children transformed from Spanish farm workers to cynical, foul-mouthed English-speakers. Written in the first person, the narrative is primary and dialogue secondary. Absurdity abounds, and nothing in Belfast is sacred - there are no, as Jesus Sanchez Ventura would put it, tattoo topics. Read it!