Himself

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Mahony’s story is told in tandem with Orla’s, the teenage girl destined to meet a messy end in the forest. There’s a good deal of wit and some sparkling dialogue as Kidd sketches in the village’s inhabitants. She hops nimbly between timelines and has imagination to spare. The forest feels alive at times. There is magic in the air. But the story becomes rather baggy and tangled in its middle section. There’s simply too much going on and focus is lost. Mulderrig is a small Irish village, a Brigadoon of sorts. One spring day in 1976, Mahony arrives in Mulderrig from Dublin, where he has lived all of his life. Or most of his life. Because just recently, he found out that one of his chief nemeses at the orphanage where he was raised, Sister Veronica, left him an envelope when she died. And in this envelope was news which changed his life: a picture of him as an infant with his mother, telling him his real name, and that he is from Mulderrig. The note also said that his mother was "the curse of the town," so they took him from her. Mahony causes a tremendous stir in the village, with his brooding good looks, unshaven appearance, easy charm and – less palatably to its residents – relentless pursuit of the truth of what happened to his mother. The official story is that Orla, the local good-time girl, who grew up in a filthy hovel at the edge of the forest, left Mulderrig one afternoon in May 1950, and abandoned her child to the “care” of nuns. Yet as the novel opens with Orla’s brutal murder in the forest all those years ago, as witnessed by her infant son, it is evident that most of the village is, if not in cahoots with her killer, at the very least unwilling to uncover the past. The bed is carved from dark wood and is horribly ornate. At the head of it stands a dead man holding his hat against his chest. The dead man looks up at Mahony with his eyes low-lidded and full. Mahony sees the famished hollow of his cheeks and the sad drape of his moustache. The dead man lifts his eyebrows imperceptibly then his gaze sinks down again to rest on the floor.

Himself | Book by Jess Kidd | Official Publisher Page | Simon

At this time of the day the few shops are shuttered and closed, and the signs swing with an after-hours lilt and pitch, and the sun-warmed shop front letters bloom and fade. Up and down the high street, from Adair’s Pharmacy to Farr’s Outfitters, from the offices of Gibbons & McGrath Solicitors to the Post Office and General Store, all is quiet. Aside from ghosts, consider the other supernatural elements that the author introduces into the universe of her novel. What is the role of the forest, for example? Why does nature “misbehave”? Orphan Mahony has come from Dublin to Mulderrig in County Mayo to try and learn what happened to his mam and who his father is. Mahony sees the dead, takes no crap from anyone, and oh boyo is he sexy. The book opens in the forest by the river as Mahony's mom is murdered there. While the killer is disposing of her body the forest protects the child, covering him in ferns and ivy, branches and leaves. Things like that happen in Mulderrig, a small town not used to strangers, where to many the son of pariah Orla Sweeney is especially unwelcome.

Himself

So I really want to read Jess Kidd's latest novel, Things in Jars. Like, REALLY want to read it. But I don't have it. This is Traveling Sisters GR Reading Group Review and it can be found posted on our themed book blog Two Sisters Lost In A Coulee Reading. The writing here is spectacular. I wish I had been reading so I could have highlighted the phrases. “If she had a heart, it would break for him, like a communion wafer.” There’s a dark humor lurking underneath the story. I just adored Mrs. Cauley and a lot of the humor revolves around her. Kidd firmly sets his story in rural Ireland and it’s so easy to picture every scene.

Himself by Jess Kidd review – a dark and rollicking debut

Darkly humorous, deviously textured and filled with a cast of quirky characters I won’t soon forget, this novel has an almost mythical quality and it is a helluva of a good read. Mulderring is a town simmering with fiercely kept secrets, quite a few miscreants and a chorus of ghosts that lurk at every corner and crevice. Mahony wiped his eyes and glanced around the bar; the drinkers were sculling through their own thoughts and the barman had gone to change a barrel. He was safe. And his trousers are ridiculous: tight around the crotch and wide enough at the bottom to mop the main road.” I think this is a no-go for me. Something about it, though a mystery, though set in Ireland, though occasionally populated with ghosts, just failed to catch my attention. It could be me, certainly. But I'll also throw out there that it just seems a touch... Irish. ™ Take me away to the small Irish village of Mulderrig where much is afoot, some of it dark but some of it fun and whimsical. This village, where a murder took place, where a son searches for his mother, where people are for you or agin you will take you on a sojourn to a place where magic and realism meld together . It is a village where ghosts roam, where Irish legends have full sway, where life itself contains many secrets and all who try to delve into those very secrets are not welcome.The driver nods to Mahony. “It’s as if a hundred summers have come at once to the town, when a mile along the coast the rain’s hopping up off the ground and there’s a wind that would freeze the tits off a hen. If you ask me,” says the driver, “it all spells a dose of trouble.” There is one scene of animal cruelty that left me wanting the fate for the man that he bestowed on the dog. Meanwhile, the ghost of Cauley’s jilted lover Johnny floats around the gardens of Rathmore House, to little purpose.

HIMSELF | Kirkus Reviews HIMSELF | Kirkus Reviews

This was a fun read: a town populated with colorful characters, both living AND dead, a juicy mystery, and a bit of a love story thrown in to boot. It was sometimes a bit of a chore keeping all the players straight, and there's a very nasty dog killing scene that seemed to serve no purpose other than to create a ghost dog, but on the whole, it was a fine time. I particularly enjoyed the cursing; nobody can spew creative curses like the Irish. Sister Mary Margaret had a cancer the size of a man’s head in her stomach and was as good as dead under the ground. That’s what they had told him but he’d come to see for himself. I almost didn’t make it past the first sentence of this book, but I am glad I did. The prologue is, fortunately, mercifully short – and with a bit of magical realism at the end, it poses the questions: “Where did he go? What happened to him and his family?” The rest of the book sets out to answer those questions. But then, when Mahony looked around himself, everything was exactly the same. The same smeared mirrors over the same dirty seats. The same sad bastards falling into their glasses and the same smell crawling out of the gents.

Publication Order of Alfie Blackstack Books

Learn some good old Irish slang. Start by Googling terms like “acting the maggot,” “earwigging,” and “throwing shapes” to see what they mean. As a noirish thriller with a supernatural edge, Himself is atmospheric and intriguing. As a portrait of village hypocrisy and the dark things that lurk beneath the surface, it’s also compelling. Is Mahony’s outsider identity important to the novel? How does his otherness mirror Orla’s experience? Mahony rents a room in the same house as the retired actress Mrs. Merle Cauley. Mahony and Cauley conclude that his mother must have been murdered and begin to investigate, starting with the interviewing everyone who shows up for auditions for the annual amateur play. The two have a similar way of cutting through bullshit and pretension and make an entertaining team.

Jess Kidd - Book Series In Order Jess Kidd - Book Series In Order

In Himself we meet Mahoney, 26 years old, charismatic, very good looking and able to charm even ghosts with just a wink. What he does to the female population of Mulderrig, a small town in County Mayo Ireland, is amazing:) I am pretty sure he has charmed many of the readers of this book, including me. I work with a man from Ireland, and it's been more than a bit fascinating to watch how white Americans interact with him. Because Americans aren't shy about claiming Irish heritage (although it's the jocular kind, for whatever that may mean), or sharing stories about what they perceive as local Irish culture (as I live in Wisconsin, you may correctly perceive this as an oxymoron), and frequently fall over themselves trying to connect with him in a way that you would never, ever see them do for most other ethnicities. I mention this, because Kidd's characters feel a little bit like the idea of what Irish people are: the disapproving priest, the drunk barman, the handsome rogue, the daffy old lady that sees into the beyond. Kidd utilizes the spectral cast of characters to add depth to the story and moments of comic relief. But the paranormal element also brings a certain creepiness along with it.Read “ Dirty Little Fishes,” Jess Kidd’s award–winning short story. Compare it with your experience of Himself. Are there commonalities in theme, character, or language? Do you notice how the author might have adapted her writing style to suit the short story form? Why do you think the author chose to put a famous play at the center of the story? How does it benefit the plot, and do you see any similarities between Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and Himself?