The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty

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Bryan Sullivan from Denver, CO: Good afternoon Sebastian, what is your take with everyting that has been happening in Ireland over the past couple of weeks?

and were respected. People with your own face' -- and his father's neat fingertips touch the top of his head -- `that sent butter down the fiver and out into the wide ocean to Spain and Portugal where cows are scarce.' Sebastian Barry uses the language with great imagination but never overwrites. This book is a wonderful gift, in every sense." —The Washington PostHailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “the finest book to come out of Europe this year,” The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is acclaimed Irish playwright Sebastian Barry’s lyrical tale of a fugitive everyman. He sees the wild boys go by the house too, at the front, his own thin and narrow house on John Street and he longs, he longs to open the door and fight them and win his place among them, but he is lanky and weak as yet. It has been many years since you last wrote a novel, and The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty comes on the heels of much success as a playwright. What prompted you to return to the novel? Are there benefits to writing in this form that you feel aren't achieved as effectively when writing for the stage? Do you plan to continue with both literary forms, or to focus on one or the other? in the beds, lying doggo for decades and decades, in turn, in thanks, in sisterhood, put little seams of daftness into her, little cross-stitches and patterns. She sat under the early windowlight stitching in her youth, in the asylum, Besides being a critically-acclaimed novelist, Sebastian Barry is a talented playwright and as many passages sprinkled throughout his prose demonstrate, he is also a gifted poet.

Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him becoming soldiers of a different kind, it proves to be the defining decision of his life when having witnessed the further of a fellow RIC Policeman he is wrongly accused of identifying the executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him he is forced to flee Sligo, his family and friends. From the first sentences of the book we know we are in the hands of a master storyteller with important things to say about history and the individual's role in it. Eneas's gripping and tragic story serves as a reminder of the fine line that exists between hero and murderer, politician and criminal."— The Wall Street Journal This excavation of his own family history to underpin his stories is not without its risks. His play, Our Lady of Sligo, based on tales his mother told him of his grandmother's life, utterly incensed his grandfather. 'He summoned me and asked me how I knew all these things,' says Barry, grimacing now at the memory. 'Then he cursed me and told me he would never speak to me again. He's gone now but he was as good as his word.' When I was looking for a name that I could use in my book, I was having difficulty finding something. One night I was watching television and on the news was an account of a car accident in the midlands. One of the witnesses was a local man and his name appeared briefly on the screen. . . Eneas McNulty. It surprised me that the name Aeneas had survived in Ireland, but when you consider the old hedge schools, whose penniless masters spoke more Latin and Irish than English, perhaps it’s not so surprising. It seemed the right name for an Irish wanderer. But as you can see, these informal parallels are a world away from Joyce, who modelled his book so intently and masterfully and artfully on the Greek structure. The day of strength has not yet come. But it will. He likes the soft face of the leader boy that is called Jonno. He hears the other boys calling Jonno's name in the dusk of the autumn when the apples are ripe and the minister notbecause he can never resist the lure of his father's noises below him, but he is nevertheless pole-axed with tiredness. Avenue 1 1/2, Galveston's red light district, makes a deep impression on Eneas, despite the brief amount of time he spends there and his apparent rejection of the pleasures it offers. What does the area represent to Eneas, and how does this contribute to our understanding of his character? What Sebastian Barry conveys, more than anything else in these three novels, is the endless human capacity for cruelty, but also love. And how the former too often outweighs the latter.

Eneas first earns Jonno's friendship with a well-timed word of warning that allows Jonno and his wild boys to escape the wrath of the local Presbyterian rector, whose orchard they were plundering. For an all-too-brief season of mischief-making and welcome camaraderie, Eneas finds acceptance among the gang. ("No treasure in life beyond pals," hisfathertells him, words that will echo poignantly in the years to come.) But Jonno, an orphan who has spent his childhood in the cold embrace of foster care, goes "serious on the world" at a young age and gradually leaves Eneas behind as he ventures out in search of "shillings and employments." Abandoned, and feeling something of the unexplainable attraction the men of Sligo have always held for the land of France, Eneas enlists to fight in the European war. But due to his age and the lateness of his decision, the closest he ever gets to striking a blow for France is service aboard a British Merchant Navy vessel assigned to the port of Galveston, Texas. It is also a book that, like life, is peopled by strange, often ghostly, minor characters, whose impact on the two main characters is far-reaching. This being an Irish novel of remembering, the most unsettling is a priest, the aptly named Father Gaunt, an unwittingly cruel man in thrall to his own power, a pious meddler in the lives of others. Barry's sweet, lyrical pitch never falters; the novel has a bold measure of old-fashioned blessedness. . . .Barry vividly creates Eneas' warm humanity. . . .[his] happy childhood provides a momentary glimpse at the stark, troubling contours of Ireland's somber history. -- The New York Times Book Review Aoibheann Sweeney The clothes one wears, and the people who produce them, are important concepts in the book. There are vivid descriptions of men in dark coats; Eneas's father is a tailor by trade; and much is made of the blue suit that Eneas dons late in the story. How does the author's use of the clothing motif contribute to our understanding of the characters, and the changes some of them undergo?

Customer reviews

Barry endows Eneas with so much gentleness that we can't help caring about him...Above all, it is the splendor of the writing that rivets our attention. Barry is a spellbinder in the great Irish tradition."— New York Newsday