Tar and Feathers ( Irish Literature Series)

by Dorothy Nelson

Overview

Dorothy Nelson's first book to be published in the United States focuses on a demented, dysfunctional Irish family. The Crawford family is dominated by Da (Joe), a manic-depressive thief and liar who has spent two years in prison for exposing himself in the woods to young children and couples. Ma is a weak and downtrodden victim of her husband's violent temper who occasionally flirts with her son Benjee, an overly sensitive boy with little hope for future happiness. As the narrative passes back and forth between the members of the family (in a style reminiscent of Ann Quin), a compelling portrait of abuse and its consequences is constructed, one that contains both horror and humor in the sexual and social sicknesses of the characters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564783738
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	12/15/2004
Series:	Dalkey Lannan Series
Pages:	133
Product dimensions:	5.58(w) x 8.66(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Nelson was born in Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland and now lives in Dun Laoghaire.

Editorial Reviews

'a hideous, unflinching depiction of mind and mentality in the throes of abuse.' -Bookslut

Dalkey Archive Press

From the Publisher

Stuff and Nonsense is more like it: Irish author Nelson's US debut is a rambling mess, portraying the squalid domestic life of an exhibitionist and his unfortunate family. Transgressive fiction seems to be in vogue now in Ireland, where the social changes brought on by secularization and economic expansion have engendered a readiness to trash any institution redolent of the old order of things. Nelson spares us the usual rogues' gallery of sadistic nuns and perverted priests, preferring instead to concentrate on the simpler indecencies of family life. His paterfamilias is a working-class lout named Joe, a small-town socialist who hangs about in pubs, rarely works, never goes to Mass, and likes more than anything to expose himself to children and young couples in the woods. Joe has two "normal" sons in England and a third, rather "odd," boy named Benjee living at home. He isn't very fond of Benjee, who reads too much, and he has no use whatever for his morbid and long-suffering wife. Young Benjee, for his part, looks down on Da, daydreams his way through school, and wants to start a band. Mam, understandably enough, considers her husband the worst mistake of her life and when he is in prison invents elaborate stories about jobs abroad to explain his absences to the neighbors. She also compensates for Joe's repulsiveness by falling in love with Benjee-in a fashion somewhat more than maternal and not entirely unrequited. We are told the story mostly from the perspectives of Joe and Benjee, and the contrast between the father's maniacal, sociopathic ramblings and the son's badly thwarted innocence creates most of the scant dramatic tension. A sorry pastiche of formless grotesques dressed upas a novel.

Kirkus Reviews