Redemption Falls

Joseph O'Connor's Redemption Falls is a dense text, frighteningly thick and closely typed. But within the covers is a work of exquisite art.

The novel centres around an Irish revolutionary, latterly Acting Governor of the Mountain Territory in 1860s America, called Con O'Keeffe. The novel comprises legal documents, ballads, poems, interviews, narratives and a host of other paraphernalia associated with O'Keeffe and his clan. The level of detail is breathtaking and the number of voices is bewildering.

But it is the number of voices that will cause the reader the greatest problems. In order to make them all distinctive - which is done with varying levels of success - different devices and styles are used. These include phonetic spelling; lack of punctuation; folksy idiom and many others. This makes the novel initially impenetrable and the narrative very difficult, if not impossible, to follow. Nevertheless, it does become clearer as the book wends its course and it would be interesting to revisit the earlier chapters to see how they appear with the benefit of hindsight.