Night Boat to Tangier
Author: Kevin Barry
Publisher: Doubleday
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Note: Content warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
In the dark waiting room of the ferry terminal in the sketchy Spanish port of Algeciras, two aging Irishmen — Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond, longtime partners in the lucrative and dangerous enterprise of smuggling drugs — sit at night, none too patiently. It is October 23, 2018, and they are expecting Maurice’s estranged daughter (or is she?), Dilly, to either arrive on a boat coming from Tangier or depart on one heading there. This nocturnal vigil will initiate an extraordinary journey back in time to excavate their shared history of violence, romance, mutual betrayals and serial exiles, rendered with the dark humor and the hardboiled Hibernian lyricism that have made Kevin Barry one of the most striking and admired fiction writers at work today.
TL;DR Review
Night Boat to Tangier blew me away. It’s very literary, but the writing is nothing less than outstanding.
For you if: You don’t mind putting in a little work for a big payoff.
Full Review
Longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, Night Boat to Tangier is an absolute masterpiece of words. Here are just a few of the many passages I highlighted to show you how amazing this writing is:
“The rented cottage was at a height above Loch an Oileáin. The lake was pitch and eerie. There was a tiny lake island that sat there oddly, as though unsure of its purpose in the greater scheme. Above, the Maumturks were the most sober mountains. The Maumturks had slow, blank, unobliging faces. Maurice and Cynthia loved each other out there.”
“The days were cold as evil but the evenings spread magic from the sea inwards and stretched out and tapped the place until it was open to our dreaming.”
“The light outside was pinched and mean at half past three. The familiar voice of the commentator soothed the afternoon like a drug. The world pressed in tightly on all sides but in simultaneous motion it opened out — this was a kind of breathing — and Maurice Hearne was nineteen years old.”
“But he could see the first swallows of the year darting across the patch of sky outside, drawing out their fast, invisible threads, and these, he knew, were holding the world together.”
The book starts with two Irishmen, Maurice and Charlie, who are waiting in the Port of Algeciras in Spain because they’ve heard Charlie’s estranged daughter will be passing through on her way either to or from Tangier, Morocco. They have a playful, easy, familiar banter with mournful undertones that gave me Samuel Beckett vibes. Every other chapter switches back and forth between the present day in Algeciras and Maurice’s roiling and heartbreaking backstory as a drug smuggler.
When you read this book, you’ll have to work for it a little bit in the beginning. The writing style jumps in head-first, and it’s sort of tricky to find your footing and figure out exactly what’s going on. I was nervous, at first, that I was going to feel lost throughout the book. But worry not, my friends — trust Kevin Barry, for he will bring you through it. And it’s more than worth the work.
At first, I was more drawn into the chapters taking place in the Port of Alegeciras, but as the book went on, I began to look forward to Maurice’s backstory more and more. I’m fascinated by the character of his wife, and I wish we’d gotten more of her. Charlie, too. But the fact that we don’t becomes sort of important at the same time. I’d also loved to have learned more about Maurice’s father. Ugh basically all of these characters were just so interesting and good.
By far, my favorite chapter was the one that took place in the pub. It shifted gears to be told entirely from the POV of random people, like the bartender, as they watched a conflict between Maurice and Charlie unfold from afar. It was really different from the whole rest of the book, but the effect was incredible — suspenseful and poignant. Such good writing, people!!
I may return to this one for a re-read. I borrowed it from the library, but honestly I’ll probably buy the paperback when it comes out. You should read it, too.
Content Warnings
Infidelity
Violence
Mental illness
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