Dermot Healy Books

Long Time, No See introduces us to the unforgettable world of Mister Psyche .In the isolated coastal townland of Ballintra in the Northwest of Ireland Recent school-leaver, occasional worker, full-time companion and Malibu-provider to Uncle Joe-Joe and his friend, The Blackbird, Psyche is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, undone by a recent traumatic event.Hanging out with men some forty-plus years his senior proves hazardous for Mister Psyche when the appearance of a bullet-hole in Uncle Joe-Joe's window draws him into a series of (mis)-adventures which unsettle and bemuse. Perhaps The Blackbird is losing it? Or perhaps The General has decided to act on a decades-old grudge? Whichever way, as the paranoia grabs a creeping hold of Uncle Joe-Joe, his fragile world threatens to collapse. And it is Mister Psyche who must digest this and acknowledge the new world taking shape in the old ...An epic in miniature peopled by a cast of innocents and broken misfits, Long Time, No See's lyrical power casts a miraculous literary spell.

A family memoir from the awardwinning Irish writer, culled from his own boyhood diary, contains recollections of Healy's father, a kind policeman in failing health, his mother's ofttold stories, and his dreamy and cynical Aunt Masie. Reprint.

In the west of Ireland, Jack Ferris, a playwright, has reached a moment of crisis in his life. Misunderstandings, alcohol and despair have driven away his actress lover, Catherine. As he tries to cope with his loss by re-creating her in his imagination, he reinvents the past and two opposing worlds - one Protestant, the other Catholic - come vividly to life. Catherine's father Jonathan Adams, a Northern Ireland policeman whose sense of duty to the RUC had given him an unwanted place in the history of the Troubles, comes to have a particular significance for Ferris. Jonathan's attraction to a Catholic South which also repels him mirrors Jack's later difficulties when he moves with Catherine to violence-torn Belfast. Both, in their different ways, remain outsiders. A Goat's Song is a powerful and honest examination of the divisions within Ireland, refracted through the consciousness and imagination of one troubled man.

»Das Wunderbare an diesem Roman ist seine allgegenwärtige Doppelbödigkeit. Hinter der realistischen Ebene öffnen sich immer wieder Blicke, die tief hineinführen ins verborgene Innenleben Irlands.« H. G. Pflaum in der ›Süddeutschen Zeitung‹ Jack Ferris steht auf der Brücke, die auf die irische Halbinsel Mullet führt, und wartet auf seine Geliebte Catherine. Aber Jack wartet vergeblich, und diese Enttäuschung verändert sein Leben dramatisch. Dermot Healy spiegelt in eindringlichen Bildern die Atmosphäre eines Landes, das an seinen inneren Konflikten leidet, und erzählt vom Ende einer großen Liebe.