Sudden Times

Stunning in its raw power, this novel, unlike many other Irish novels, draws its power from its simplicity, rather than from lush description or the accumulation of details. Stripping language to the bare bones here, Dermot Healy draws the reader, without embellishment, directly into the confused mind of the main character, a carpenter named Ollie Ewing. Ollie has just returned to Sligo, almost mute with shock from unspoken, terrible events which have befallen him while in London, where he has been working as a day laborer on construction sites. The narrative shifts back and forth in time and location, revealing Ollie's paranoia through flashbacks, brief scenes, and dialogue, which sometimes seem to have no context other than their revelation of his suffering. He is clearly trying to hang on to his sanity--and is only marginally successful--as he talks to the reader in quiet, almost confessional tones. Using unadorned, simple language, he describes things he sees that are not there and voices that no one else can hear. Never wasting a word, his earnest narrative forces the reader to share his thoughts while interpreting his state of mind. Gradually, the reader learns of Ollie's almost paralyzing experiences in London, where he lived with a friend, Marty Kilgallon, in a trailer at an old construction site. Through Marty, Ollie learns firsthand about the protection rackets and extortion on construction sites, the common use of murder as a weapon of enforcement, and the unsympathetic judicial system. When his friend disappears and does not return for six weeks, Ollie gets caught in a whirlwind of violence and learns the true meaning of hell. By the time he returns to Sligo, he has come to believe that there is a "glass sprinkler" machine, operating at night, which sprinkles glass over the streets of London, that the flecks in people's eyes are aliens, and that his own image in a mirror is someone imitating him. Though Healy's style is often difficult to follow, as the reader tries to piece together the events that are responsible for Ollie's current state of mind, Healy's use of detail is stunning. Casually inserted, bizarre observations about common aspects of life help create Ollie's inner life and illustrate his existential helplessness. The essential unfairness life, the power of chance, and Ollie's victimization catch the reader in a whirlwind of emotions, and his plaintive voice, crying out from all this, is unforgettable. Mary Whipple

Meet Ollie Ewin, the young Irish carpenter who narrates this book. Ollie is a troubled lad, who has hallucinations during the day and cannot sleep because of his nightmares. We first meet him as a lowly clerk in a supermarket and are made part of the terrifying past that haunts him. But the details are never spelled out and one can only guess at the outlines. Then Ollie goes to London and the whole story congeals and unfolds. Ollie blames himself for some of the terrible things that happened that time in London while he is unable to understand the others. He is caught in a swamp of vicious crime and it slowly drowns him. The story escalates until it ends in a nasty persiflage of justice.First of all, the author shows courage in starting a book with events that make little sense, trusting that the reader will not give up on him. Secondly, he shows incredible imagination in placing us into the tortured soul of this young man and succeeding in making us feel it. And, in addition, the language is superb.This is a must-read!

Dermot Healy is amazingly talented. I have now read three books by him - 'The Bend for Home', 'Sudden Times' and 'A Goats Song' (still my favorite of the three). Each time I read him, I am stunned by how, well - perfect - his writing is. His characters tend to have lost thier minds (madness, drink, drugs,or some combination), and the line between what's 'real' in the novel and what the character is hallucinating is never clear. Why do they go about things the way they do? Well, because people do... Like many of Angela Carter's creations, Healy's characters are appealing and attractive, yet at the same time annoying and almost repulsive... In the end, the reader is offered no explanation of what went on - if the character himself doesn't know, how can he explain it to US? He told it to us the best he knew how, anyway. The books have some very undefineable beauty to them. I don't understand why Dermot Healy is not more widely recognised than he is.

The voice of Ollie Ewing in Sudden Times is haunting, terrifying. With morbid curiosity and creeping anxiety,the reader follows Ollie's dark journey and witnesses his psychological disintegration.This is not a novel that I would recommend because I "liked" it; it is a novel that is uniquely constructed and well deserving of recognition. Take a risk. Lock your door. Read Sudden Times....

One of the best books I have read this year is Jeffrey Lent's "In the Fall". So when I read the appraisal of this Author's work not only by Mr. Jeffrey Lent, but Roddy Doyle, and others, I thought the chance I was taking on an Author new to me was minimal. The man who wrote this book, Mr. Dermot Healy, has produced a work that will be on any short list of favorites from 2000 I will have. This book is unique and unconventional it is extraordinary. Some of the commercial commentators felt the need to go beyond what the jacket provides, and into events in the book. That decision was unnecessary, but thankfully it in no way detracts from the book. There are no simple explanations for this work, and were the story line known to you, because of the way Mr. Healy delivers his tale, little would be lost. This is a book that can be read and read again.The book is written in the first person and that is about the only conventional aspect of it. The book is laid out in an eclectic manner. Actually it is presented in a bewildering pattern less structure that initially left me lost. Going back and reading a passage again does not help, because the subject of the book is lost, and the Author puts to paper the thoughts of what a person in the various frames of mind this individual goes through, would look like were thoughts visible. Once you get in step with the Author and his character everything makes sense, what seemed random is not, what was seemingly fragmented becomes perfectly assembled. This book does not say what it is like to feel a certain emotion; it causes the reader to feel as though he or she was experiencing the events themselves. The feeling when the book is read goes beyond the vicarious to something more akin to immersion.The Author then demonstrates how masterfully and with what range he can craft language, how versatile he is, when, toward the end he lays down courtroom conflict between defense counsel and witnesses that is as well done as any such exchanges I have read. The dialogue is sharp, terse, and delivered in a hyperactive exchange. The Author demonstrates with ease what so many crime story pretenders struggle to produce and generally fail.The book is brilliant, the Author a writer of incredible range, and he offers a reading experience you will not forget, and one that you will be hard pressed to repeat.