Of History and Histories... Turning for Home by Barney Norris

Of History and Histories…

Turning for Home by Barney Norris

A book review

“The Vanishing Hours”, the latest novel by novelist and playwright Barney Norris, is out on the Doubleday in July.  In anticipation of publication date, I am posting my review of Norris’s “Turning for Home” which I had read and greatly enjoyed back in 2017.  

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The “Boston Tapes” were an oral history project about the Irish Troubles, commenced by Boston College in 2001. Researchers conducted interviews with both republicans and loyalists, on the understanding that the transcripts of the interviews would not be released to the authorities, at least until the interviewees’ deaths. Years later, investigators sought access to the tapes, giving rise to legal and diplomatic issues which, it is often argued, might have had an impact on the Irish peace process.

This novel is inspired by the Boston Tapes, and short (fictitious?) extracts from the transcripts are included at salient points of the narrative. However, “Turning for Home” is neither about the Boston Tapes nor about the Troubles. Barney Norris seems less concerned with the “grand canvas” of History than with the intimate histories of his characters. 

Interwoven with the “tapes” are two first-person narrations. On the one hand, there is that of Robert Shawcross, a widower and retired civil servant, who was on placement in Belfast at the time of the Enniskellen bombing in 1987. In his understated way, Robert contributed to negotiations between the English Government and the Republicans following the bombing. On his 80th birthday, as family and friends converge on his country home for his yearly birthday party, he is briefly brought out of his retirement by two old contacts concerned about developments involving the Tapes.

 
In counterpoint with Robert's story, there is the narrative of his granddaughter Kate, still nursing emotional and physical scars following a horrific accident. Kate returns to her Granddad’s party after a three-year absence, and has to face meeting her estranged mother, Robert’s daughter Hannah. Against the “set-piece” of the open-air party, we learn Kate and Robert’s stories and, through them, that of the persons close to them.

There is much to enjoy in Norris’s novel. For a start, the unobtrusive yet well-crafted way he builds the structure of the novel – the alternation between the voices of Robert and Kate (as well as the ‘Boston Tape’ witnesses) is elegant and flowing, yet Norris also knows how to keep some surprises up his sleeve. Several common themes running throughout the book bind the different narratives together. The theme of history and memory, for instance; how the past shapes us and how we in turn shape our past (or our reading of it, at least). There is also the theme of relationships and the sense of emptiness when these are lost or compromised – we are given to understand that both history and History are ultimately driven by personal relationships and personal needs. What struck me throughout the novel, in fact, was this constant interplay between the public and the intimate, between the extraordinary and the mundane. The novel certainly tackles major philosophical themes, but it also deals with the everyday – characters get out of bed, have breakfast, go for walks, go to the bathroom, have normal conversations over lunch, argue about whether to wash the dishes or chuck them in the dishwasher.

This is also reflected in the language of the novel. Often poetic and rich in eminently quotable “nuggets”, it nonetheless contains passages of unexpected simplicity. And this is, I think, what ultimately makes it so poignant and moving.

Kindle Edition, 253 pages

Published January 11th 2018 by Transworld Digital