A poet returns to the windswept Irish village she once ran away from, unsettling the town and setting in motion a chain of events that will dredge up secrets. It’s a familiar set-up that works brilliantly in Alan Murrin’s novel, The Coast Road. Murrin, an Irish author who lives in Berlin, deftly unspools a web of resentments, repressed desires, friendships and faltering marriages on the rugged Atlantic coast of County Donegal, written in prose that’s as moody, striking and lovely as the landscape.
This is a compelling, suspenseful novel
Set in 1994, the plot is charged in part by rumours of the coming referendum that finally made divorce legal in Ireland. The poet in question is Colette Crowley, who left her family to run away with a lover to Dublin before returning in a bid to reconnect with her children. A cast of other residents – the frustrated, witty spouse of a local politician; a policeman turned parish priest; the dutiful wife of a philandering electrician; chattering gossips and pub drunks – fill out the novel. Looming over the tale is a fire evoked in a brief prologue, adding a hint of tension to this compelling, suspenseful novel.
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