We're in Dublin in the 1990s, meeting the widowed and recently retired Tom Kettle, who had been a police detective, I immediately engaged with this novel, which lilted along in a strong Irish accent, and which I'd have happily read with no plot at all, for the sake of accompanying Tom Kettle through his retirement. But there is a plot. And it's not straightforward. It loops back and forth through memory, and I really don't want to give anything away except to say it does involve the sad, bad old story of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy. Kettle is an unreliable narrator. Facts haze in and out, can be deliberately confusing. How difficult it is to tell a story rooted in a barely-remembered or understood past. But there is love, enduring love, underlying everything. A book to savour, despite the unappetising events that underpin it. ( )

https://shawjonathan.com/2024/03/14/sebastian-barrrys-old-gods-time-at-the-book-... ( )

Thickly written ghost story.

"People endured horrors, and then they couldn't talk about them. The real stories of the world were bedded in silence." ( )

It took the first 100 pages for me to fully get into this book, but so worth it. Tom Kettle is a retired policeman living near the Irish Sea in a rather remote apartment. Two younger policemen come to visit and references are made to the "priests" - an unpleasant memory but the reader is not sure why.

A colleague of Tom's comes later and it seems he has been accused by a priest of killing another priest who is now accused of child molestation. Did Tom kill the first priest as an act of revenge due to the fact that the first priest had molested his wife June. Tom's childhood was terrible as an orphan living in an orphanage run by priests and nuns He joined the Army and became a sharpshooter in Malaysa which enabled him to join the police force.

The book is beautifully written (with some strange similes at times), and the ending brought tears. Both of his children, Joe and Winnie, have died terrible deaths, his wife is gone, and how much of his memories are correct. This is truly a case of an unreliable narrator.

Tom's entire life has been affected by tragedy, but he has survived. What memories are real, what are dreams. Ending brought tears. ( )

Beautifully lyrical writing of a painfully wrought story about the lasting damage of child abuse that never resolves, even into adulthood. The narration often drifts into stream of consciousness, making it a bit difficult to follow. The pain of the characters is raw and heart-wrenching. Beautifully read by Stephen Hogan. ( )