June 1963. New Ross, Co Wexford is “sparkling with a one-time-only sort of magic”. The town prepares for the visit of president John F Kennedy. Hope, shame and regret bubble as this once insular community casts its gaze outwards. Progress is the word on the tip of everyone’s tongue. But what happens, Tully’s debut novel asks, to those that progress leaves behind?
The Visit follows town residents Garda Sergeant Field and Patrick Hatten. The former is a decent, old-school romantic with a strong moral code, a lapse from which haunts his otherwise contented life. The latter, a local outcast, “a man who’d been given his sentence, then told to pick his crime”.
Much to the chagrin of his community, Sergeant Field maintains a paternalism for the orphaned Hatten, who as Kennedy’s visit approaches risks further exile when his home comes under threat from a local property developer.
“You take a young fella and tell him he’s no good and cut him off from the world and a chance of work, or any sort of purpose to get up in the morning, and what will he do?” Field asks. “He’ll find his own purpose”.
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And thus, it is this “purpose” Hatten decides upon that propels The Visit.
The cultural context of this novel is important. This was a period of mass economic migration, where men lining the dole queue, “confessing the guilt of their unemployment” eagerly awaited the economic uplift of taoiseach Sean Lemass’ ambitious new vision for Ireland. In the same month of Kennedy’s Irish visit, the first civilian (a woman) orbited the earth. “What could be?” the New Ross locals ponder these new realms of possibility, and in lonelier moments, the question of “what could have been” echoes.
Tully puts forward these questions elegantly with understated, lyrical prose. He prioritises reflection rather than indulging in the story’s potential for a more pacy telling. Amid all the promises of progress, Tully seems to say, we can choose to look outwards, inward or at the confluence of these two points, by observing the world around us. A strong debut with some truly eloquent writing.
