Wild Decembers /

First published in London in 1999, this is the American release of the latest novel by one of Ireland's most eminent and prolific women authors. In the recent wave of popularity of Irish authors, much of O'Brien's previous work has been enjoying a renewal of interest. Old fans and new readers alike will appreciate the depth in O'Brien's storytelling, the power in her writing. This is the gripping story of Joseph Brennan, an Irish farmer in the rural community of Cloontha; of his impassioned fight with Mick Bugler, who has returned to Ireland from the "New World" to claim ancestral land; and of Joseph's sister Breege, caught between loyalty and fear of her brother and her consuming love for Bugler. Joseph and Mick quickly square off over a battle for land rights to a mountain, "a place where pride and stubbornness and perpetuity would be put to the test, then and in time to come." Joseph, a hapless character, is a student of history and mythology, interests that only fuel his obsession. An unsuccessful legal battle with Bugler causes Joseph to unravel, and he is driven to desperate actions. Fearful of her brother's rage and somewhat fragile emotionally, Breege wages her own unsuccessful battle to keep her feelings for Bugler hidden, even from herself. O'Brien's writing is dark, but not without humor, and rich in dramatic imagery of the Irish countryside, as she probes the inner landscape of the human heart. --Grace Fill

The wild Irish humor and savage Irish melancholy that are both legend and stereotype receive exemplary treatment in this powerful novel by the prolific O'Brien (Down by the River; Time and Tide; Lantern Slides). Scenic Western Ireland is the setting for her tale, and particularly Cloontha, a village snug against a mountain where "lust for a lip of land" has set "warring sons of warring sons" against one another for centuries. Bachelor Joseph Brennan and his young sister, Breege, have never left their family acreage; Mick Bugler is newly arrived from Australia to claim adjacent land inherited from an uncle. They meet amicably when Mick's tractor gets stuck in Joe's farmyard, but their budding friendship soon sours, even as Breege, secretly smitten with the handsome newcomer, tries to pacify her irascible brother. The tractor, a novelty in the area, is dubbed Dino the Dinosaur by one of a notorious pair of sisters, Reena, "a child of nature," and Rita, a conniving slut. Their seduction of Bugler in order to obtain a free load of hay is exuberantly erotic, but this episode does not deflect the reader's woeful sense of foreboding about the growing conflict over territory between Joe and Bugler. Bugler admits he has a fiancee in Australia, so Joe is increasingly distraught as he senses and fears the halting romance between his innocent sister and the man he considers "the despoiler." The climate, the landscape, the history, all so deeply ingrained in the native Irish psyche, underscore the suspense. Remaining unflinchingly true to her characters, O'Brien allows the inevitable tragedy to play itself out, evincing the pity and terror of classical drama. 5-city author tour. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

O'Brien (Down by the River, 1997, etc.) returns to rural Ireland for a tale of love, land feud, madness, and murder. Right from the start the author warns her readers that this mountainous countryside is a place of 'fields that mean more than fields, more than life and more than death too.' Joseph Brennan and his sister Breege have resided and worked all their lives on a dairy farm that has been in the family for generations. Enter Mick Bugler, riding the mountain's first tractor, home from Australia to claim the neighboring land his family has also held for years. At first charmed, then threatened by the big, bluff, self-assured expat-come-home, Joseph falls into a dangerous rivalry that becomes a slowly escalating war of threats, lawsuits, and bar fights. Inevitably, Breege and Mick become equally entangled in a relationship at first chaste, then, for one brief moment, physical. Clearly, things can only turn out badly. In the hands of a lesser writer, matters would degenerate quickly into clich‚s and the twee tones of a professional Irishman recounting the quirks of lovable small-town folk. But O'Brien, who tells her story in a mosaic of shifting tenses and points of view, has the gift of the great Irish master-singers, painting word- pictures alternately somber and giddy of a world that has no secrets, one where guilty knowledge fuels the fires of both rage and love. The supporting cast, which could have easily seemed two-dimensional (wily old solicitor, gossiping hairdresser, dumbfounded local cops) transcends stereotype in O'Brien's memorably drawn portraiture. Her mastery of tone and register keeps Wild Decembers churning even when it's a foregone conclusion where all that anger will lead. Proof again that in the hands of an artist, no plot is hackneyed, no emotion too obvious.