Shannon, A Novel, launches February 2009

On the 10th of February, 2009, Random House will publish Shannon, as part of my series of Irish historical novels that began in 2005 with Ireland – a novel, and continued with Tipperary in 2007. My intention in these books is to track the twentieth century in Ireland; the action of Shannon happens in 1922, in the midst of Ireland’s appalling and mercifully brief Civil War. The next volume in the series (I'm working on it now) moves on a decade and focuses on 1932 - the year of a famous and tumultuous General Election. It also has a sense of the theater in Ireland, and, always, storytelling, and it will appear in February 2010. To whet the appetite for Shannon, here is the review that has just appeared in Kirkus:

"A rousing tale of forbidden love, civil war, horrible death and other things Irish. Ireland-born novelist Delaney (Tipperary, 2007, etc.) never met a turning point in the Emerald Isle’s history that he didn’t like. With this entry in his ongoing epic cycle of novels, he turns to a big one: the bloody strife that accompanied the birth of the Irish Free State in 1922 and ’23. American priest Robert Shannon lands on Ireland’s shore just as the bullets start flying, and bad luck for him: A former chaplain serving with the U.S. Marines in France during World War I, he suffers from a textbook case of shell shock. That malady occasions a characteristically encyclopedic aside from Delaney, just as the book opens, on the etiology and management of posttraumatic stress—and readers who dislike didacticism should be warned that his narrative often pauses to break the fourth wall and explain what’s what: “One of the symptoms of their illness…is a morbid irritability—they tend to become upset and to take offense at the merest trifles—and this leads to trouble with the other patients, the nurses, and the medical officers responsible for discipline.” Morbid irritability being an Irish specialty, Shannon fits right in with the village folk he is called to serve, out in the country in which, the locals say, Saint Patrick himself was afraid to wander. Shannon restructures his shattered life while wandering in places where he’s not supposed to, including the arms of a widow lady—but it would be spoiling things to tell, save to note that Delaney explains, "In the Ireland of 1922, virginity dominated the lives of single women, and the relevant fire and brimstone rained down every Sunday from pulpits all over the country." How this transgression resolves, and how Shannon manages to keep from cracking up in his war-torn adopted country, makes for a fine adventure in storytelling.

"A well-crafted, satisfying work of historical fiction, as are all of Delaney’s novels; respectful of the facts while not cowed by them, and full of life."

Comments

[Karin Goudy]

Just finished reading Shannon and liked it very much. I liked the detailed information on shell shock and thought this book not only an interesting story, but a powerful statement on the horror of war, especially WWI.
Only superficially aware of the Irish Civil War in the 1920s and its causes and effects I would have liked to have had that aspect of the book more fully developed. I need to read a good history of that period in Irish history. Loved the folk stories in the book. Thanks for a great read.