Though it is not the main focus of the story I was utterly charmed by the way Barry was able to create a convincing gay relationship that went undetected, and (leaving aside the manner in which she was orphaned) I really liked the way Thomas and his companion John Cole became loving parents to an Indian girl. Days without End soon became unputdownable, and yes, it was another four-o’clock-in-the-morning finish. However, my reservations were soon obliterated by the force of the story. I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it. And the blurb made it clear that it was going to be about the Indian Wars and the Civil Wars. There’s a slim connection with the Irish diaspora because Thomas McNulty came to America as a very young waif in the wake of the Potato Famine, and there are aspects of the way he and his fellow Irish-born are treated that attest to discrimination, but the lilt was gone. I usually like it when an author experiments with style and content but because I love the seductive Irish lilt in the voice of Sebastian Barry’s characters, I was a little taken aback to find that his new novel is set in 19th century America and narrated by an Irish-American protagonist.
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