Tomás is wandering the wilds of Ireland with a purpose: he is working on a great project to map the whole of Ireland. Of course that means he's working for the Red Coats, who treat him and his son, Liam, like garbage. But Tomás knows what he's doing and, in a way, sees it as his duty to record what's left after the Great Hunger has ravaged his beloved homeland. But the land can change a man - a copse of trees or a deep, clear well can trigger something deep inside and change them forever. It can unearth the kind of ghosts that might haunt you, without you ever having seen a thing.
This is not a paranormal story, not in any real way. The ghosts that haunt its pages aren't really the undead but the incorporeal manifestation of the Irish experience. But the past itself, the pain and the suffering and how it has put things in motion, that's what's weaving in and out of this beautifully written tale. It is a story of siblings and the parents, of a remote house out on a peninsula and how the land and the people change each other. It's about decisions that can't be unmade and how our choices don't just impact ourselves but also those we care about. It's about the brave decision to pivot when things no longer feel right and the courage to do what must be done even when it feels like it might break us. And knowing when it's time for each.
This is a evocative and atmospheric book. More than once I felt actual physical feelings for these characters and what they went through. I never ended up crying so much as just ACHING for how little of life we can control sometimes. It is a bit slow going, that's the only thing I would complain about, and even that's no reason not to pick up this book.
The audiobook narrator is brillant, both his female and male voices were so lilting, it truly helped me get into the narrative.
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