Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Taschenbuch)

The story that unfolds as these two friends criss cross the city is both a funny enjoyable read and a serious political satire on the poisonous politics of Northern Ireland.

The prominence of the street names is significant, for the novel is partly a paean to Belfast and its people. In the middle, McLiam Wilson briefly pauses the plot to voice a lyrical ode to his hometown. In a typically daring piece of writing reminiscent of the style of the American Thomas Wolfe, he describes how, in the wee hours of the morning, he can sense Belfast's stories in the quiet of its streets, when "all the streets are poetry streets."

Yet if that sounds sentimental, the novel is not. Though written with love, the book is also a penetrating satirical portrait of his troubled birthplace.

While being "dead satirical," as Chuckie puts it, McLiam Wilson manages also to be very funny. He plays with the routine Belfast absurdities that have developed after almost thirty years of the "Troubles." One running joke refers to the litter of acronyms-used as shorthand for political parties, paramilitary groups, slogans, and curses-that covers the city's walls. His rich cast of characters conveys superbly the mordant comedy of Belfast conversation as Jake and Chuckie meet regularly with their friends Slat, Septic, and Donal. Then there is Aoirghe, the middle-class Irish Republican radical whose name sounds like a bad cough; Chuckie's mother Peggy, a typical working class martyr-mother who in the course of the novel achieves a surprising liberation; and Max, a beautiful American woman who inexplicably succumbs to Chuckie's approaches.

In the novel's second half social satire gives way to sharp political satire. Although he grew up a Catholic in the same part of Belfast as Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, McLiam Wilson has no time for the evasions of Irish Republican politics. In a disturbing chapter he confronts the realities of terrorism and the political fudging of those realities. The chapter is a pure set-up; a new character is introduced but one senses that she is going to be there only briefly.

The predictability of the tragedy that ensues does not detract from the passionate anger with which McLiam Wilson writes. Afterwards the author takes aim directly at Adams (called Eve in the book; no need for too much subtlety) and at his nationalist party, Sinn Fein. That party's name is usually translated as "Ourselves Alone." In a brilliant flight of satirical invention that may well catch on in Belfast pubs, McLiam Wilson plausibly translates it a shade differently, and lampoons Sinn Fein throughout the novel as the "Just Us" party.

To any young novelist Belfast presents a dramatic gift of a subject, but one that is liable to blow up when unwrapped. This is a city where real life holds more drama than fiction and objectivity is impossible; how to address the grim political violence is a consuming question.

In his brilliant first novel Ripley Bogle, McLiam Wilson had wisely used the Troubles only as background. In Eureka Street, he shows himself ready to face the subject squarely. He does so with notable courage and with a fire in his belly.

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