{"id":531,"date":"2010-05-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T22:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=531"},"modified":"2024-12-31T14:12:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T01:12:18","slug":"hand-in-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2010\/05\/22\/hand-in-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand In The Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Hugo Hamilton<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>HarperCollins<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, May 22nd 2010<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>The Hand in the Fire<\/em>, the passions and contradictions of contemporary Ireland and the difficulties of assimilation into a foreign country are writ large within the minutiae of the domestic.\u00a0 The narrator, Vid Cosic, is Serbian emigre fleeing the ghosts of his past. A stranger in a strange land, the unexpected and apparently unconditional offer of friendship from young Dublin lawyer, Kevin Concannon, seems to be a blessing.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">After Kevin (acting in Vid\u2019s defence) leaves a man beaten and bleeding on the sidewalk one night, Vid becomes is the main suspect.\u00a0 In loyalty to his friend Vid remains silent about Kevin\u2019s involvement, and in return the lawyer arranges for him to do some work on his mother\u2019s house.\u00a0\u00a0 Whilst there, Vid learns about Kevin\u2019s estranged father, Johnny, and the tragic story of his aunt, Maire Concannon, whose pregnant body was washed ashore and buried in an unmarked grave on Inishmore in the early 1900s.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">When Kevin\u2019s sister Ellis falls pregnant to her deadbeat boyfriend, Vid feels compelled to unravel the question of whether Marie\u2019s death was suicide or murder, and to reconcile Johnny with the family, lest history repeat itself.\u00a0 Kevin\u2019s responds with a rejection as sudden and complete as his initial friendship, while the consequences of the violence he committed at the beginning of their acquaintance return to Vid with tragic results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Although not quite in the league of Colm Toibin, Hamilton uses the eyes of an outsider to skilfully capture the complexities of the Irish character without passing judgement, and in so doing takes the reader with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/review-special-novels\">https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/review-special-novels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hugo Hamilton<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOtago Daily Times review May 22nd 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[115,370,421,119,18],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-115","tag-fiction","tag-historical","tag-hugo-hamilton","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}