Himself

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He’s been into his twenties and he’ll come out again the other side none the worse for it; he has the kind of face that will stay young. And his trousers are ridiculous: tight around the crotch and wide enough at the bottom to mop the main road. A tongue-in-cheek tone initially brings a lightness to proceedings, with characters introduced as speedily and vividly as an Agatha Christie mystery. He has a photograph of her, where she’s holding him as an infant, given to him as he was leaving the Orphanage. The legions of murmuring, plaintive deceased are what most command our attention in the novel: appearing first to a desperately lonely seven-year-old Mahony amid the dreary violence of the orphanage, they are “drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks in their tales, which the dead just yearn to fill”.

Himself by Jess Kidd | Waterstones

Mahony is not only scruffy, but he also has that devil may care smile which seems to floor every woman that he meets with. This, in turn, meant that it was going to take her long to complete her degree through the Open University. Teasing, pirouetting Ida is Mahony’s phantom guide; most notable among the living characters is the marvellous creation of Merle Cauley, a balding, foul-mouthed former actor, who claims to have been the muse of JM Synge. I hope this is not a cliche as I'm not Irish and haven't had the pleasure of visiting Ireland, but Kidd's writing for me has a lilt. In Himself we meet Mahoney, 26 years old, charismatic, very good looking and able to charm even ghosts with just a wink.

The forest is a dark, mystical place where ghosts roam, lovers meet, and a recluse lives in a caravan. Why would they when all the roads that lead to Mulderrig are downhill so that leaving is uphill all the way?

Himself by Jess Kidd review – humour and horror collide

She’s put him out like a cat a million times but like a cat he has a habit of slinking back and curling up in the warm corners of her mind. An omniscient narrator skims the minds of various villagers, revealing disreputable pasts and treacherous secrets. He can see and speak to ghosts of the past, some of whom are happy to help with his plight, while others are simply afraid of him.I’m grand,” says Mahony, putting his rucksack down and smil ing up through his hair, an unwashed variety that’s grown past his ears and then some. You’ll get no talk from them today: they are struck dumb by the weather, for it hasn’t rained for days and days and days.

Himself by Jess Kidd | Goodreads

Luckily the sun has a desperate struggle to get in through the windows of Kerrigan’s Bar, but if it can seep through the smoky curtains it can alight on the sticky dark wood tables. For Father McNamara was heeding the advice of the local guards along with the principle that a rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; it usually lands and festers right next to it.But the beauty of Kidd's storytelling, and the warmth of this book is wonderful, reminding me a bit of those quirky Irish movies like Waking Ned Devine.