Madam, - I read with surprise the unremittingly negative review by Derek Hand of Denis Kehoe's first novel Night Beneath the Nation(Book Reviews, October 4th). There is not one single positive note in the entire piece - it is entirely destructive - so it is bizarre to read in the final paragraph: "There is certainly ambition here and that is to be welcomed and encouraged". If that is encouragement I would not wish to be on the receiving end of your reviewer's discouragement.
Criticism is very largely a matter of taste and opinion. However, when Mr Hand not only excoriates style, setting, plot, everything else and then goes on to say that the author fails to "recreate a world", he crosses into an area where opinion and reality meet.
I was around in the 1950s in Dublin and experienced its gay life. I have to say that, unlike your reviewer, I found the novel brought it all back to me brilliantly and imaginatively. Mr Kehoe did recreate that period. I ought to know. As I said, I was there. - Yours, etc,
Senator DAVID NORRIS,
Seanad Éireann,
Dublin 2.