“The Hill Road” by Patrick O’Keeffe

Following closely on the heels of yesterday’s finally-concluded book and aided by a day off work, I’ve finished reading this collection of four novellas set in the Irish countryside. At a total of 225 pages, I should have come to the end far sooner than I did, but I suppose that's neither here nor there. 

When I first came across it, I didn't know anything about this book or its author, but I can tell you exactly why I bought it: it was on sale for $1 at Books-A-Million, and it was published by Penguin. And although I have no specific memory of this, I'm sure I also did the Dip Test to make sure the writing didn't suck (spoiler alert: it didn't). All this was years ago, though--who knows how long, exactly--and in the intervening time, this book languished on my shelves in a very un-Kondo-like way. (For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, see "The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it.")

This is the last of the slim volumes I brought with me on our April trip (though I obviously didn't read it during our April trip) with the idea of leaving a trail of books behind me. Having so nearly achieved its purpose (being read, obvs), I couldn't just re-shelve it, so it stayed in my TBR short stack. But when I finally got started, I found it slow going. I'm sure it didn't help that I was trying to read three other (non-fiction!) books at the same time. Each evening I would start with the one I was least interested in and force myself to read it for five minutes (which, in tangential but exciting news, has now brought me within 25 pages of the end of that one!) and would then cycle through the other two books until I allowed myself the treat of fiction. While this system will give me the (eventual) benefit of having read some books that are more good-for-me than enjoyable, I think it was detrimental to my reading of The Hill Road. Maybe for my next fiction selection I should try the "dessert first" method. (As I type this, I already know I won't allow myself to do that. If I do, it will end up being the "dessert only" method.)

The titular novella in this book comprises nearly half of the entirety, and I'm pretty sure it was my least favorite story of the four. It seemed to take me weeks to get through that one, and only a day or so for each of the others. That's not to say it wasn't well-written or worth reading, because it was both; but I don't feel like I settled into it the way I did with the other three. The central element that I remember is Albert Cagney's unraveling after his return from fighting in the Great War, as told through the memories shared with the story's narrator. Next was "Her Black Mantilla," about orphaned Alice Gilmartin who is sent to live with Lena Tarpey and her bed-ridden brother; Alice very nearly has a tryst with the man who had been in love with her older sister years before. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of a spoiler--oops, sorry about that. Then, in "The Postman's Cottage," Eoin O'Rourke's mysterious disappearance is ruminated upon years later, and although it's never clearly stated, by the end it seems that Kate Dillon knows what happened to Eoin. Lastly, in "That's Our Name," the death of the beautiful Yank found beaten and hanging in a tree is not such a mystery to Marty's mother. All four stories have secrets and memories and death, but maybe the first was a bit too sprawling or expansive compared to the other three.