Book Review: Last Night on Earth
* Kevin Maher
* Little, Brown, €17.99; ebook, €9.99
* Review: Afric McGlinchy
Hardly the preparation he needs for his new life in London. Nevertheless, because of his innocence, charm, remarkable knowledge of movies, and sheer luck, he is plucked from his job on a building site to work in television, making documentaries.
Jane, the woman who has ‘discovered’ him, decides to educate him, Eliza Doolittle style, and force-feeds him books about science, philosophy and literature. These come in handy to explain experiences as they arise.
An example of philosophical dualism, he tells us, is “the mickey having a mind of its own … holding back for my own sake”.
Through Jane, he meets Shauna, an intelligent, sophisticated, and sexually experienced American, with a wry sense of humour. When asked what she thinks of a line of parked black Mercedes, she comments: “tiny dicks, massive egos and global warming”.
Although Jay thought she didn’t like him, she defends him from being humiliated at an upper-crust English dinner party. Later, the naive Jay takes her hand in the garden, and the chemistry is instant.
I recently reviewed Matt Sumell’s Making Nice, about Albie, a bad boy who briefly comes right. This is a heartbreakingly humorous story about a good boy who goes wrong. Jay is a real innocent, having to rise to the challenge of taking on “an encounter with the feckin’ Ollie Campbell of internationally capped vaginas”.
Perhaps Shauna needs a passport. Perhaps it is love. Either way, they marry and have a child, Bonnie.
However, no one has prepared them for baggy-eyed, red-rimmed sleep deprivation, the “small hour breakfasts … after the shock-wake of being landed on from a modest height by a 29 pound 3-year-old Bonnie”. Based on the toddler’s chortles, Jay surmises that this was “the practical joke that kept on giving”. Parenthood meanwhile, makes Jay and Shauna feel like “Mary Poppins on crack”.
Jay’s love for Bonnie is overwhelming, despite the fact that her difficult birth was so traumatic, she still hasn’t spoken by the age of three. However, for Shauna, the strain of coping with the aftermath causes ructions in the relationship and eventually the couple splits. Jay moves in with Roo and Ree, two Nigerians.
Roo’s girlfriend Wendy tiptoes in to Jay’s room to find him sleeping, and observes that “sleep expresses the sadness and confusion that he otherwise hides underneath a blanket of grands, fines, no bothers and you-know-yourselves”.
The not-so-innocent-anymore Jay resorts to ever-”present cocaine to help him cope, only to spiral further out of control. Things don’t improve when his childhood friend, The Clappers, turns up and tries to help. They escape further calamity by taking an impulsive trip home to Ireland, where Jay is faced with devastating family revelations and a bizarre request.
The story moves back and forth between the early and late 1990s, during the time of New Labour and the building of the Millennium Dome, which Jay is documenting. Chapters take the form of what appears to be letters home to mammy (although the revelations are hardly suitable for a mammy), third-person narratives of events, and sessions between Shauna and Dr Ghert, her therapist.
Scattered with Irish phrases, written phonetically for the benefit of non-Irish readers, this is a story whose timpishtas (‘accidents’) turn it into a tragic-comic film noir. And, like Bonnie’s morning joke, it keeps on giving — surprises. To read Last Night on Earth is to experience a frequent sense of emotional recognition: “the deep soothing aching kiss of home”. Highly recommended.
