Night Boat to Tangier
Ratings19
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings19
Average rating3.8
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE From the acclaimed author of the international sensations City of Bohane and Beatlebone, a striking and gorgeous new novel of two aging criminals at the butt ends of their damage-filled careers. A superbly melancholic melody of a novel full of beautiful phrases and terrible men. In the dark waiting room of the ferry terminal in the sketchy Spanish port of Algeciras, two fading Irish gangsters, Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond--longtime partners in the lucrative and dangerous enterprise of smuggling drugs--are waiting on the boat from Tangier, and 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. Mordant and hilarious, lyrical yet laden with menace, Night Boat to Tangier is a tragicomic masterpiece rendered with the dark humour and the hardboiled Hibernian lyricism that have made multi award-winning writer Kevin Barry one of the most striking and admired fiction writers at work today.
Reviews with the most likes.
I almost didn't want to give this a rating because I don't think I really gave it a good effort. I listened to the audiobook on loan from the library and it just didn't really hold my attention, to be honest.
There's some nice passages in here and I enjoyed the narration by the author, but I could barely even tell you what the plot was if pressed. It was quite short (~6 hours), so I actually might give it another shot sometime and come back and revise this.
DNF at 40%, felt sort of like rereading En Attendant Godot so it wasn't for me.
Took me a bit to get into it but loved it then. Great story, wonderfully told. Interesting and unpredictable. I thought it read like a screenplay at times and sure enough there's a movie in the works, should be class.
Barry's particular style of writing - laden with description, detailing events play-by-play, and full of poignant statements on the human condition - makes this an incredibly vibrant read that draws you in and doesn't let go. I love the lack of quotation marks and how it blurs the lines between dialogue and description, and the insight into the characters gained through flashbacks.
