Ghosts and Lightning

Denny Cullen left Ireland for Wales not too long ago. He hoped to break free of the drugs, drinking and violence that characterized his life in Dublin and start to find meaningful, or at least steady, work. But when his mother dies, he is called back home and quickly resumes the life he was trying to leave behind. This time, Denny has just enough clarity and almost enough willpower to begin to change things, but it often seems like he may be fighting a losing battle. Denny is the protagonist of Trevor Byrne's debut novel, GHOSTS & LIGHTNING, and he is in keeping with the sort of anti-hero created by contemporary Irish and Scottish writers like Roddy Doyle and Irvine Welsh. While more sensitive than his mates, Denny is not above a fight, oogling a pretty girl, or using drugs to mask his feelings. But because readers are getting his point of view in first-person narrative, we understand a bit about his motivations. Raised, along with his sister and older brothers, mostly by his mother, Denny didn't have much growing up. At least when his father wasn't around, the home was cheerful. But his brothers had inherited an awful dark and violent streak from their father that scared Denny and put off his sister Paula. Now it is just Denny and Paula alone in the house that their mother had made a home. Back from Wales, Denny must confront his sister's alcoholism, his brothers' anger, his father's absence, his friend's destructive habits and his own loneliness, all the while mourning his loss. As Denny and Paula continue to drink and do drugs to cope, the house, unfortunately legally owned by their brother Shane, starts to deteriorate --- a symbol of their own emotional deterioration. From séances to drug-induced black-outs, from camping trips gone awry to bleak house parties, Denny wanders aimlessly, and it is not until he finds himself surrounded by some interesting strangers that he begins to call on the strengths he has to find joy and purpose in life again. Byrne, again like Doyle and Welsh, writes in the vernacular that will either be an exercise in authenticity or a frustration to readers. Despite the predictability of the narrative style and plot, GHOSTS & LIGHTNING has some wonderfully poetic and insightful moments. Once we find Denny drinking tea during a rainstorm at a small cafe inside a church, he is contemplative and awed by the simplicity, majesty and peacefulness of his surroundings. It is a well-conceived moment of reflection and quiet but inevitably spoiled by a drug dealer wanting Denny to work for him. Even in that place of solace, Denny feels haunted by his circumstance. Sometimes funny and sometimes sad, Byrne's novel is highly stylized yet genuine. Denny feels, though somewhat familiar as a literary character, quite real. His friends and relatives are interesting as well, but Byrne doesn't delve too deep into their psyches; the focus is on Denny and even he remains a bit of an enigma. After his mother's death, there are no huge

When it comes to Celtic Noir, Declan Hughes gives us the tragic tough guy, Adrian McKinty the poetic, now, Trevor Byrne introduces us to Denny, a guy whose toughness only comes out in his ability to take a punch. Denny mourns both the Mother he's lost and the brothers and sister he still has. He wants a a car, a girl, and a clean house, but each time he's presented with an object of desire, he'll do anything except hold on to it. Yet, he's fun, and honest, and naively romantic without romanticizing drink, drugs, or Dublin. Ghosts and Lightning is delightfully profane and reeking of Joycean paralysis. In it Byrne juxtaposes professional wrestling, casual police beat downs and the implacable brutality of low-tech violence. Not to mention terrifying sheep, giant moths, and a spirit that just might be Chuchulainn. I wanted to re-read it as soon as I turned the last page. Besides, how can you not love a book that introduces "manky" to your vocabulary.

I almost gave up on this book, yet about one third of the way through the writing, first simply clever, became a vehicle for descriptions of family love: the family we're born with, the family we create, and, ultimately, the family that we lose, and then somehow carry on. There's much more here than just clever dialect (memo to Byrne: sometimes less is more, we've all read Joyce up to the eyeballs) and the desperation of those who did not benefit from the (now apparently moribund) Celtic tiger. Truly looking forward to hearing more from this talented new voice.

After reading the first several pages of this book in the store, I decided to buy it...and it was a great decision. While it took me a little while to catch onto the Irish dialect/slang that it's written in, the story and the way in which it was written came across as very real, authentic, and never boring. The suspension of disbelief was dead on; I found it very easy to get immersed in the story and feel like I was actually there. Highly recommend :)