Books & Poetry

McCabe’s ‘trick’ is to introduce his main character, Strange, as a secondary character through Hatch, the effect being that we don’t pay much attention to Strange and fail to see McCabe’s subtle foreshadowing. But aren’t narrative tricks demeaning concessions an author makes to his readers? McCabe doesn’t see it that way. ‘I wrote a book called “Call Me the Breeze” that doesn’t operate by those rules at all and the thing is, nobody bloody read it.’
The writer he singles out as the ultimate anti-audience practitioner is William Faulkner, a novelist to whom McCabe, with his Irish Gothic instincts, is often compared. ‘Faulkner gives no help whatsoever to the reader. Although I love Faulkner, what he’s delivering to you is not enough.’ Feature continues

What adds both readability and enjoyment to ‘Winterwood’ are punctuating snippets of myth, pieces of folklore and relics of ballads. And while these mainly give authenticity to his speakers, it’s obvious McCabe is enamoured of the oral tradition and feels some degree of responsibility for keeping it alive.

That said, the characters who represent the ways of the old valley are also shape-changing murderers, which lends a degree of satire to any wistful depictions of a lost Ireland.

‘If you look at some of the old cowboy songs that started out as kind of campfire ballads, they are absolutely scatological and profane. The tension is when you yearn for something that wasn’t there in the first place – some lost paradise.’ But just as ‘auld’ Ireland fetishists are lampooned, so too is modern life. Here is Temple Bar, ‘the epicentre of Dublin’s hedonistic empire, a playground exclusively populated by louche adolescent Euro-ramblers and indigenous chemical-fuelled youths vertiginously wading in the currents of an ever-expanding opalescent ocean, shorn of history and oblivious of religion.’

I read the passage back to McCabe. ‘Slouchers,’ he smiles. I say he must really loathe Dublin, but he shakes his head. ‘It’s only harsh in the context of the character. In fact, I like it.’

McCabe can’t tell you why he writes what he writes, and he certainly isn’t reaching after fact or reason. Pared down ‘right to the bone’, ‘Winterwood’ is a welcome read for those of us who still believe a novel’s primary mandate is simply to be beautiful.

‘Winterwood’ is published by Picador at £12.99