I have to admit that since the beginning of the school year, this blog has been pushed to the back burner as life has been just a little busy. I haven't had a whole lot of time for reading, and when I do, I don't seem to have the time or energy to write about it. I read (and blogged about) Tana French's second book, The Likeness, a couple months ago. I loved it. Faithful Place, in typical Tana French style, stars a peripheral character from her previous book, so I already knew Frank Mackey a little and was happy to see him return. When Frank was a young man, he and his girlfriend Rosie planned to run away together from Ireland to England, get married, and get cool jobs. Not many people escape the tenement Faithful Place, but they were going to do it. Only Rosie never showed, and Frank has been fighting pain and confusion in the 22 years since. Now, all this time later, Rosie's suitcase shows up, then a dead body that could possibly be Rosie's.
The perceptive reader can puzzle out what's happened before the end, but it's not a disappointment. This book is at least as much about familial and neighborhood relationships as it is about the mysterious disappearance of Rosie Daly. French is a genius at capturing atmosphere; in this case, working class urban Ireland. Frank got out of Faithful Place, stayed out for 22 years, but the values and morays learned as a child are buried deep, not gone. The language is spot on. (I had intended to include some quotations in this post, but I had to return the book to the library before I got a chance to write this.) I've been avoiding French's first book because I've heard the ending is less than satisfactory, but I guess I'll just have to suck it up and read it sooner rather than later...
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