Muristek
Folklore, superstition and music fuel this funny and frightening epic verse novel about displaced Irish siblings in 70s London
A major Irish writer of the postwar generation, Patrick McCabe is best known for his early novels The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both shortlisted for the Booker prize and filmed by Neil Jordan. His career since has shown a willingness to experiment in a wide range of forms and styles, climaxing in this verse novel, Poguemahone, from crowdfunding publisher Unbound.
Broadly, Poguemahone is a story of possession – of hatreds, obsessions and souls – and of what cannot be possessed, such as friends, lovers, children, even a home. Its narrative is mainly spoken by Dan Fogarty, who attends upon his 70-year-old sister, Una, who has dementia and is in a care home in Margate. Through fractured prismatic recollections, we learn that their family was driven from Ireland in the 1950s at the instigation of local priest Monsignor Padna, victim of a humiliating supernatural incident. Padna arrives with a mob one night at the “inbred” Fogartys’ cabin, declaring, “A curse has come upon this land,” and saying the nuns would come for Dan and Una’s mother Dots unless they left.
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