Himself

Product Information

What he finds after reading the contents of the letter sets up an amazing narrative filled with magical realism. Ghosts, start to appear everywhere approaching and engaging Mahony who is crestfallen because he used to see them all the time and thought that he was rid of them. Talking trees that don’t just talk, but gossip like a group of old ladies at their Sunday bridge game. The man plans to kill both mother and son, but after burying the mother and returning to find the son, he is perplexed, puzzled. It is almost as if the very forest itself has hidden the child from him. No matter how hard he searches he cannot find the child. Ferns have curled around him, branches have stooped and dropped their leaves in a blanket covering him.

Himself by Jess Kidd - Publishers Weekly Himself by Jess Kidd - Publishers Weekly

While Jess Kidd spent so much time creating the "good" characters, and they are so tremendously appealing, some of the "bad" characters don't get the same attention, so they feel a little more like stereotypical characters than fully realized. But the beauty of Kidd's storytelling, and the warmth of this book is wonderful, reminding me a bit of those quirky Irish movies like Waking Ned Devine. (In tone, not subject matter.) This is a book which would be absolutely terrific as a movie because there is so much your mind's eye pictures, and it would be great to see that portrayed on screen.Determined to uncover the truth about what happened to his mother, Mahony solicits the help of brash anarchist and retired theater actress Mrs. Cauley. This improbable duo concocts an ingenious plan to get the town talking about the day Mahony's mother disappeared and are aided and abetted by a cast of eccentric characters, both living and dead. All across the USA, people are showing up dead. The deaths don't appear to be connected in any way until one particular death occurs and gets the Secretary of Defense's attention. He arranges for a task force to investigate. Mystery fans should be forewarned, however . . . the story is also infused with the paranormal and has been given a strong dose of magical realism. A] whimsical mystery… That’s the pleasure of Himself — the way the novel’s plot, with its delicate language and soft Irish lilt, wanders like lush green vines, never seeming to travel in straight lines. A villageful of characters emerge, all of them having a deft way with a line... The mystery here is how the living and the dead live side by side, and the joy is the music with which Kidd brings all of the characters to life." From the moment he arrives, Mahony’s presence completely changes the village. Women fall all over themselves. The real and the fantastic are blurred. Chatty ghosts rise from their graves with secrets to tell, and local preacher Father Quinn will do anything to get rid of the slippery young man who is threatening the moral purity of his parish.

Himself | Book by Jess Kidd | Official Publisher Page | Simon

The dead old woman opens a pair of briny eyes as round as vinegar eggs and looks at Mahony, and Mahony looks away, smiling full into Tadhg’s big face. “So are there any digs about the town, pal?” Read “ Dirty Little Fishes,” Jess Kidd’s award–winning short story. Compare it with your experience of Himself. Are there commonalities in theme, character, or language? Do you notice how the author might have adapted her writing style to suit the short story form?Debut novelist Kidd paints a darkly magical tale of a man who revisits his birthplace of Mulderrig, a small coastal town in Ireland, to investigate the mysterious circumstances of his mother's death 26 years earlier...Joining Mahony on his quest for answers are three women who add even more color to this richly drawn mystery about a town with more than its share of secrets...Told in a unique voice with complex characters, the paranormal mystery will keep readers guessing whodunit until the very end -- all while falling in love with the quirky cast. A darkly comic tale that is skillfully and lyrically told." Mahony, as we know, has come to Mulderrig to find out what happened to his mother. He is caught in quite the conundrum. If his mother is alive, why did she leave him? And as he has the power to see dead people, if dead than why can’t he see her? Tadhg withholds a fart, just while he’s thinking. “Shauna Burke rents out rooms to paying guests at Rathmore House up in the forest. That’s about it.” Magical realism, humor, the paranormal all combine in this enchanting story. Mahoney has an unforeseen talent, like his mother before him, he can see and talk to ghosts, and his return stirs all the town's residents, living and dead. So much humor, I laughed continuously, smiled often. Mrs. Cauley owes a debt of gratitude to Jane Austen's Collected Works, War and Peace and a few other large tomes, after all books do save lives. There is one part of only a few paragraphs that is quite unsavory, concerning a dog and some violence because as I said there is a murderer about and he is bent at not having his secret uncovered.

Himself by Jess Kidd review – humour and horror collide

The first chapter will vault the reader twenty-six years into the future from the prologue. Mahony will exit his bus and find himself in a village named Mulderrig. Mahony has not been here for twenty-six years and even if he could remember, he would not notice that nothing has changed.

In her exceptional debut novel, Kidd explores the dark corners of the human mind in small-town 1970s Ireland, creating a haunting story that moves between the supernatural and the mundane. A murder mystery on the surface, the story digs past the traditional whodunit structure to paint a rich portrait of village life... While the plot hurtles along at a rapid pace, leading inexorably to the heart-pounding final conflict, Kidd injects ample doses of macabre humor and lyrical description in this memorable story from a strange, bold new voice.”

Himself by Jess Kidd review – a dark and rollicking debut

Inside the envelope was a photograph of a girl with a half smile holding a blurred bundle, high and awkwardly, like found treasure. Mahony turned it over and the good solid schoolteacherly hand dealt him a left hook. Due to the fact that the author is of Irish descent, Jess Kidd believed that it was only right that her first novel, Himself, should definitely head to the West. Furthermore, an imaginary town and village seemed like an ideal place to experiment with the blending of crime fiction and other elements. Kidd recalls the summers that she spent as a child on Ireland’s West Coast wandering across her relatives farm. Jess Kidd believed that each place that she went was inhabited by different types of creatures. For her main character, puzzled ghosts of the dead, who follow the protagonist throughout the town as if they are trying to find answers, inhabit the town of Mulderrig. As the book begins to get shape, the author begins to reveal some of the major questions that revolved around the disappearance of the outcast mother, Orla.Whether Mahony wishes the dead to remain in his peripheral vision or not, he can’t avoid them. He has come to town, searching for his story, and they have stories to tell. Kidd's brilliantly bold debut mixes up murder and mayhem with the eerily supernatural. It's a tender, violent and funny story told in prose that is lyrical, lush and hugely imaginative. Utterly unputdownable." The forest is a dark, mystical place where ghosts roam, lovers meet, and a recluse lives in a caravan. A murderer? There are so many secrets that most of the men seem suspicious and the women are suspicious of their men. Kidd’s writing hits every note. She can take us in an instant from a vicious encounter to one that is tenderly funny. Even her use of the supernatural seems natural in this small Irish village, where most believe in the ability to see ghosts, even if they don’t have it themselves.