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"Things around here were more like they used to be than they ever had been." — from Faithful Place by Tana French
Although I figured out who the murderer was in the first twenty-five pages, the suspense of Tana French's Faithful Place, named after a decrepit, crime-ridden Dublin neighborhood, was not lessened for me. Perhaps this is because while the novel masquerades as a detective story it is in reality something more; it is an Irish fairy tale set in modern times. In the old stories the hero had to explore strange lands, encounter preternatural creatures and battle fierce beasts.
In Faithful Place, undercover policeman Frank Mackey must merely go home and face the dysfunctional family he fled from twenty years earlier. Now the Mackeys are no more dysfunctional than any other family where one of the parents is a severe and brutal alcoholic but, to paraphrase Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way. I suppose this applies to the Mackey family, who in spite of the boorish father and sewage-mouthed eldest brother, as well as the prodigious use of the word "feck," do have their charming moments and redeeming qualities. Their uniqueness is indubitable, and for me the members of the Mackey family are among the most unforgettable bunch of characters I have ever encountered in fiction for combining hilarity and pathos with sheer insanity.
Frank, however, can see no redeeming qualities in his family, whom he tries to hide like a shameful secret. He sees no virtue in any of them, only roughness, coarseness and tragic absurdity. Mrs. Mackey has done her best to hold the family together for many difficult years; to Frank she is tacky and ridiculous, clinging to superstitions. His sisters have tried to make something out of their lives and are warmhearted women; to Frank they are witless and silly. The youngest brother Kevin is sweet and gentle; to Frank he is just a kid whom he ignores until it is too late. Even Shay, the oldest brother, has glimmers of decency; Shay does his best to cover it up with bitter obscenities and recriminations. In Shay's case, Frank overlooks the obvious. Indeed, his entire odyssey back to Faithful Place is comprised of rebuilding all the memories and preconceptions he has nourished for years. The ultimate journey and the ultimate battle are within.
The main reason that Frank despises his family is that he blames them for the loss of Rosie Daly, his one true sweetheart who, he always believed, jilted him and ran away to England. Now in just about every ancient Irish tale there is a fairy woman who holds the hero in thrall. Frank is definitely enthralled by the memory of his Rosie with her fiery hair, green eyes and almost preternatural dominion over the dreariness of Faithful Place. His love for Rosie is an excuse for him not to enter into a mature relationship with his wife, who sadly divorces him. In fact, as he idealizes his perfect relationship with his ethereal Rosie, he speaks to his wife in an ugly way so that he almost sounds like his father talking to his mother. Similarly, he uses his working class background as an excuse to be crude and rude when he knows how to behave like a gentleman if he chooses. When Frank discovers that the ineffable Rosie never intentionally abandoned him but rather was the victim of foul play he is shattered to the depths of his soul and must rebuild his world.
Frank is the kind of man a woman wants to clobber even while she's falling in love with him. His is the most witty dialog in a novel rich with incisive banter. It is a book which had me laughing out loud and I would have laughed more had there not been so much foul language, especially the overuse of the f-word. If that is how people really talk in the slums of Dublin then the author succeeded in a creating a realistic depiction. At any rate, I was reminded of a Martin Scorsese film (The Departed, not The Age of Innocence.) With that warning in mind, I would recommend Faithful Place to anyone who enjoys detective stories, stories about dysfunctional families and, most of all, stories set in Ireland.
