A rare thing. The Irish writer Kevin Barry’s fourth novel is a strongly plotted book that offers a doomed love affair, horses, high mountains, bad weather, a desperate journey and even a knife fight; a Western, in short, and a good one. But that plot is the least compelling thing about it, and the novel’s real force lies in the mordant wit of its language ... Barry’s sentences are often long and flowing and yet sharply angled too. They lilt but don’t lull, and are virtually impossible to quote at length ... What sets him apart is the bright black hole, the grim laughter, of his language, with his sentences all “bass tones and bottom.” This short, tight novel pulls one so swiftly along that it can be read on a summer’s afternoon.
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