Kevin Barry's Night Boat to Tangier was one of the novels I picked up in my recent foray to Kinokuniya, and I'm very glad I did. There's not much in the way of plot, though enough fragments of a coherent storyline do come together to satisfy, but there's no shortage of poetry on every page: smouldering, dark, funny, menacing; rhythmically compelling; viscerally evocative.
I have no acquaintance with the world of drug-running and addicted Irish gangsters, I'm happy to say, but Barry enabled me to vicariously experience something of that world in all its rich bleakness, fortunately at a distance, but close enough to feel for its denizens. And enjoy them. And learn from them.
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