By Janet Maslin
Published: July 11, 2010
New York Times
By Tana French
400 pages. Viking.
$25.95.
Left - Tana French - photo by Kyran O'Brien
Frank Mackey grew up on a cramped Dublin cul-de-sac called Faithful Place. Street name notwithstanding, Frank had no fidelity to the neighborhood. A horrendous trick of fate drove him out of there two decades ago, and he turned his back on his difficult working-class family. But as Tana French’s expertly rendered, gripping new novel begins, Frank has to go home again.
The reason: Rosie Daly. Rosie was Frank’s first sweetheart. She too grew up in the claustrophobic confines of Faithful Place. In 1985 Frank and Rosie decided to make a joint getaway and elope to England. All 19-year-old Frank had to do was stake out a spot on the street late on the appointed night and wait for Rosie to join him. For 22 years he has heard no word of her and has tried not to wonder why she never showed up.
“Faithful Place” begins with startling news: Rosie’s suitcase has been found. One of the houses on the cul-de-sac was being stripped of saleable parts, and the suitcase turned up behind a fireplace. It contains her clothes, her birth certificate and ferry tickets to England. There’s no way Rosie would have willingly left those tickets behind.
Soon Frank finds himself sucked back into “the bubbling cauldron of crazy that is the Mackeys at their finest.” He has four quarrelsome siblings in various states of discontent. Their ma makes pronouncements like: “You’ll have to settle down sooner or later. You can’t be happy forever.” Their da, who was drunken and abusive in his prime and has aged but not mellowed, speaks of his three sons as “little whoremasters, the lot of yous.” That remark is delivered in a spirit of affection.
Full review at NYT.
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