Think Gangs of New York meets A Clockwork Orange meets Mad Max and set in 2050 Ireland. 
The City of Bohane is located on the west coast and named after the river that runs through it. Bohane is divided into several districts that are ‘governed’ by a gang, the Hartnett Fancy. Logan Hartnett aka Albino/’Bino/H/Mr. H/the Long Fella is the current boss of the fancy
He had that Back Trace look to him: a dapper buck in a natty-boy Crombie, the Crombie draped all casual-like over the shoulders of a pale grey Eyetie suit, mohair. Mouth of teeth on him like a vandalised graveyard but we all have our crosses. It was a pair of hand-stitched Portuguese boots that slapped his footfall, and the stress that fell, the emphasis, was money.
In Bohane, the way you carry yourself is everything.
Kevin Barry writes like a poet chewin’ loonies. His prose is so good, and his story telling is… so good. He writes with this street slang that is totally believable. And this is one of the few times a ‘twist’ really caught me unawares, and it was cool. It was as subtle as his narrator, yet when looking back it was set up really well. Not one of those times that leave you like “okay, well, didn’t see that coming, but who the hell could have?” More like: Whoa… Barry is fracking great!
Right from the start we learn that the guy who had holdings of the fancy prior to the Long Fella is back and 25 years gone, the Gant Broderick, is still one bad dude – fifty years old, he’s still aka the Big Unit – “He had a pair of hands on him the size of Belfast sinks.” This book is one of an insular city of vice and all of the people (there are some really great ones in here) reflect it. There is love and violence and distrust. There is cold maneuvering and hot syrupy sentiment. The Gant <a bastardized form of giant> is one of these that suffer from attacks of sentiment, looking for the past, for the ‘lost-time’. But, this doesn’t stop him from being one big bad ghoulie _ he still carries his blade around.
The characters are what really solidify this book for me. They are kind of like Barry Hannah’s characters, maybe a bit more fantastically so. Oh, and the women in this book are just great:
Jenni Ching is one strong female, a bad chic. She’s sexy, smart, and kicks ass all day. “Jenni took a stogie from the tit pocket of her white vinyl zip-up. Torched the motherfucker.”
Macu, the Long Fella’s wife, is “dark-complected and thin, with a graceful carry of herself, and a sadness bred into her. One of her eyes was halfways turned in to meet the other, but attractively so.”
Girly Hartnett is the Long Fella’s mum. “… eighty-nine years of age, and in riotous good health. Girly was the greatest rip that ever had walked the Trace but she resided now in a top-floor suite at the Bohane Arms Hotel. The Curtains hadn’t been drawn back in decades.” *Girly is not just some old hag in this tale.*
I’m just going to list a few names from the book at this point, because they are just wonderful:
Ol’ Boy Manion, Eyes Cusack, Sweet Baba Jay,
Big Dom Gleeson, Wolfie Stanners & Fucker Burke.
Bohane is a city that “builds sausages & beer” for the fierce winters. It builds fierce people for the blackness that seeps in from the river. If you want to read a great story, you could do worse.
I’m going to give this one a 5/5 ***** and I’ll deff be reading his short story collection that comes out later this year.
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