The secrets that destroy

A betrayal of trust appears to be about to lead an angry husband into the darker chapters of his family's history

A betrayal of trust appears to be about to lead an angry husband into the darker chapters of his family's history. But Philip Casey's third novel, written with his characteristic diffidence, never becomes as confrontational as the subject might suggest. Dan and his wife, Kate, parents of a son and daughter, are themselves the English-born children of two sets of Irish parents who had settled in London years before. As the novel opens, the couple are in Florence celebrating Kate's birthday. The setting is romantic and also perfectly suited to their respective interests; Kate is an art teacher with a passion for Renaissance art, and Dan is an architect who shares her love for beauty.

The intimacy between them quickly moves from comfortable to highly intense. The richness of the descriptions of famous paintings act as a prelude for their response to the mood created by the pictures dominated by dramatic black men.

In the opening sequences, Casey appears determined to draw the reader along at a more heightened pitch than might have been anticipated on reading his previous novels, The Fabulists (1994) and The Water Star (1998).

In ways he makes it too easy, particularly by his portrayal of Kate as an edgy woman who appears slightly wary of her husband, to predict the personal disaster that is about to hit the family. The passion in a Florence hotel room is consolidated by the pregnancy that follows.

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Just as a father's face is often imprinted on that of an infant and remains on the growing child, the complex history of her family emerges on the features of little Meg. The situation Casey describes is a fraught one, yet throughout the novel the potential emotional impact of The Fisher Child is consistently undermined by his uneasy characterisation - none of the characters are convincingly drawn, while the dialogue is flat and never seems to catch the natural pitch of conversation.

Casey has given his central characters lively parents. The quiet Kate, traumatised by the pain of her husband's refusal to accept their new baby, seems even more lost in the relationship she has with her mother, Deirdre.

The older woman makes no secret of often having fantasised about having sex with a black man, and has also dreamt of having a black baby. Most of the exchanges and sexual banter between mother and daughter are contrived and unconvincing. It is only when confronting Dan that Deirdre appears real; otherwise she is a caricature. The same problem, that of an involved, interested older person contrasting with their disillusioned grown child, happens with Dan's widower father, Hugh, who has returned to live with relatives in his native Co Wexford and has begun a new life.

Yet aside from the weak characterisation and dialogue, Casey has a story to tell, which he develops with sensitivity. If the characters fail to engage, at least the narrative does. In an attmept to explain what has happened, a flashback to the Wexford of 1798 begins. This is told from the viewpoint of a young insurgent whose family is butchered. This man, Hugh Byrne, Dan's ancestor, also battles with a crisis of faith and self belief. Initially an exciting sequence, the 1798 episode falters abruptly. Hugh then travels to the Tropics as his tale becomes a quest. Therein lies the beginning of a story that remains silent for a century.

The Fisher Child certainly explores the notion of family and the secrets that both bind and destroy. Many readers, myself included, may be offended at the idea that Dan appears outraged, not so much at the idea of his wife sleeping with another man as by the colour of the man.

But moral outrage is not appropriate when reviewing fiction - or is it? Dan himself is in a dilemma. He considers himself a liberal and finds his very notion of self exploded by his behaviour.

Extensive research has gone into the shaping of this novel. Casey, one of the quiet men of Irish writing, is a careful, diligent storyteller, and, as he has shown here, daring.

There are faint echoes of Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, in as much as both works attempt to examine what happens when a norm is upended. But Dan's sulky character never acquires any true sense of confused bewilderment, while Kate's passivity and lack of anger surprise.

It is true that the 1798 sequence promises more than it delivers, but Casey's attempts to describe the emergence of modern Irish society, its myths, its realities and bitter truths, through his Bann River Trilogy, remains brave and honest. The Fisher Child, however, ultimately fails to meet the demands of a challenging story.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times

Eileen Battersby

Eileen Battersby

The late Eileen Battersby was the former literary correspondent of The Irish Times