The Dead House by Billy O’Callaghan (2017)

Website of Billy O’Callaghan .

A Very Interesting Wide Ranging Q and A Session With Billy O’Callaghan

From here you will find links to my posts on his short story collections as well as 

One of his short stories I was kindly allowed to publish

I have been following the work of Billy O’Callaghan since March of 2013.  I have featured three of his delighful short story collections.  We also did a very interesting wide ranging Q and A session.  

The Dead House opens in a fashion that evokes centuries of Irish literature, with the narrator announcing in the prologue that he has a long kept story emerged in his consciousness, he hoped he would never feel he must tell the story but now years later he knows he is so obligated.  

I found the novel immensely captivating for the very visual and mesmerising descriptions of the West Coast of Ireland, dramatic cliffs and isolated villages, the character of the narrator, Michael, a successful happy in  his work fine art dealer, his wife after time Alison, their poet friend Liz, and the very intriguing a bit fey painter, Maggie, a long time client of Michael.  The characters are very subtlety developed, O’Callaghan draws us into understanding them.  

For years Michael has sold Maggie’s paintings, he is more than just her art dealer, he is a near father figure and mentor.  We learn Maggie has a history of abusive boyfriends.  We are left wondering what lies below the surface beteeen Maggie and Michael.  A man Maggie loves beats her terribly, putting her in the hospital.  When she finally gets out of the hospital, Michael, Maggie, a poet friend Liz and Alison take a drive along ruggedly beautiful coast, with the spectacular cliffs, country pubs, and small villages.  Maggie falls in love with a broken down old House.  She just has to have it.  Everyone, even the estate agent tries to steer her to a less broken down place.  Michael gives her, maybe we can see it as advance on future sales, a good bit of money to buy it and more to make it livable.  

I really do not want to spoil the wonderfully done super natural elements, very convincing. O’Callaghan gives us a super entertaining and frightening Ouija Board session involving our four central characters.  Through this we are brought into contact with a mysterious and sinister Master and scenes of the horrors of the famine years.  Memory of the real and mythologized past is never to far away and O’Callaghan does a masterful job with this.  Strange and macabre things happen to Maggie, left alone in the house in the hopes she resume her painting.  

I have left out a lot of the exciting plot action.  If you can give yourself over to The Dead House, you will be taken on an exciting journey through West Ireland, the darker side of Irish history, the occult, and relationships.

The Dead House is a powerful and beautiful debut novel which I endorse without reservations to all lovers of the form.

There is a detailed bio of Billie O’Callaghan on his website.

http://billyocallaghan.ie/en/

Mel u