Kindle. Transparently Trainspotting meets Waiting for Godot, without the iconoclasm of either. Two early-50s Irishmen sit in a ferry terminal in Spain waiting for their "crusty" (dreadlocked; Australian "feral") daughter of ambiguous parentage to arrive. Most of the book is a retrospective of them running drugs from Morocco via Spain to the west coast of Ireland, their rudimentary indulgence of women and drugs, their squandering of the proceeds in real estate projects, all tendentiously: Moss is not a "colourful character", Charlie makes a minor Begbie. The remains of these days have little to say to those who weren't there on those nights of "legend". Things get a bit twins-y like The Solid Mandala without making enough of the dualisms. On their telling no-one would ever do drugs (so don’t do drugs ok). There is nothing like Lucky's "thinking" here to mesmerise and centre; the style is uninnovative modernism. Some of the writing and motifs are quite fine, but clangers like "the answer to love is not hate" let alone the numerology and busted superstition make me think that Barry is too much category error.
Dwight Garner phones his review in; he seems to excessively quote every text now. Alan Warner suggests Endgame is more apt, and is more indulgent. Declan O’Driscoll reckons Pinter is the even more apt referent, also quotes at length, and provides the keenest critique I found. Perhaps Barry's point is that these gents represent a solipsistic generation that will plead for romantic indulgence of their past crimes and vacuity while the futureless-future as represented by daughter Dilly will just walk on by. And yes, it might be that trite. Also Nicole Flattery.