A voice of distinction

It is the story of Anthony Sonaghan, a Traveller lying low during a blood feud with his family’s legendary rivals, the Gillaroos. Complicating matters is his shared descent from both factions, for Anthony is one of a brood of “childer made of both the Gillaroo and the Sonaghan”. He belongs to each and yet, in his own eyes, he is “part of no breed”.

This is the Way is thus Anthony’s attempt to take control of his story. “I was thirteen fourteen month in a room in Dublin,” he begins, describing in his distinctive voice the warren of bedsits where he disappears among the nation’s other stateless refugees: an Egyptian, a group of Africans, Polish labourers and undocumented Chinese. Joining him in exile is Arthur, his story-filled but illiterate uncle, and eventually the pair take up with a folklore scholar named Judith Neill.