Book review: The Gap of Time

The updating of a scary tale was a dodgy prospect but this re-imagining of a tragic comedy is brought off with skill and bravado, says Mary Leland.

IT COULD be said that as a novel The Gap of Time is an idea whose time has come and gone. The re-telling and re-wording of old stories from folklore and fairytale to the classics of literature in many countries through the centuries has been done already, maybe even over-done.

The fables of Ireland have been victims of revision for many years, modern writers have been indulging their own preferences in versions of ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ with deliberate aversion to the originally intended audiences; perfectly finished novels are vicariously continued into a future unintended by their first author.