The King From Over the Water

by John O'Donoghue

Overview

John Kevin comes to Ireland every summer with his mother, and leaves London behind him for the sunshine and countryside of Ireland, the company of his six cousins, and the life of Ballydawn.

Running through all these summers is his friendship with his cousin Mattie, and their gradual understanding as the Troubles worsen that the world can be a much darker place than Ballydawn lets on.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781999375300
Publisher:	Wild Geese Press
Publication date:	04/01/2019
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

John O'Donoghue is the author of Brunch Poems (Waterloo Press, 2009); Fools & Mad (Waterloo Press, 2014); and Sectioned: A Life Interrupted (John Murray, 2009). Sectioned was awarded Mind Book of The Year 2010. His story 'The Irish Short Story That Never Ends' won The Irish Post Creative Writing Competition in 2016. He was awarded a Brookleaze Grant by the Royal Society of Literature, also in 2016, to work on a novel about John Clare and Robert Lowell, both patients in the same asylum over 100 years apart. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton.

Table of Contents

PART I: The Young Pretender

A Crossing

The Unicorn

Kissing Cousins

The Bogey Man

A Visit from Grandpa

PART II: Bonnie Prince Charlie

Between the Lines

The Double Corner

A Visit to Auntie Nora

The Scholar

A Bike Ride

Translation

Dust to Dust

Up in Christie’s Field

Onion Scalp

The Smugglers

A Day at the Seaside

On the Cards

The Curate

Picking Up Sticks

The Goat

The Time Capsule

Playing Tig

A Wedding

The Carnival

PART III: The King from Over the Water

The King from Over the Water

The Ballydown Chronicles

The Spot in His Eye

Acknowledgements

Editorial Reviews

Looking at Irish country life in the 1960s and 70s through John Kevin’s eyes is a magical experience. By turns sad, funny, dark and lovely, John O’Donoghue introduces us to a rich set of characters in the long summer days of what seems a distant, warmer time. Mick Finlay, author of the Arrowood novels

“We’re flesh and blood, John Kevin. Cousins. You’re a part of me, and I’m a part of you.” What if the past is another country that is nearly but not quite yours? John O’Donoghue’s short stories explore the emigrant experience through the often minute details that differentiate neighbouring cultures. John Kevin is an innocent abroad not in a foreign country, but in the country of his parents’ birth. He must navigate the familiar and unfamiliar with only his own inherited instincts to guide him. Nessa O’Mahony, writer

These stories from childhood summers in Ireland are written with delicacy and tact, their solid realism mingled with the magic of childish imagination. Tessa Hadley, writer

From the Publisher