Something terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.
His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can’t seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn’t feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack’s dad when he gets out of the hospital.
Still, there’s work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles’ garage; there’s his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there’s JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.
But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king?
I’m delighted to be sharing my thoughts on Where Are the Kings by Donal Ryan for the Random Things Blog Tour today. Many thanks to Doubleday for sending me a copy of the novel and to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in the tour.
Where Are the Kings is a relatively short book set in a small town in Ireland and yet this moving coming-of-age story proves to be a universal, authentic tale of grief amidst the tangled contradictions of family life.
Jack’s mother, Grace dies by suicide when he is 12-years-old and on the cusp of adolescence. His memories of life with his parents are returned to throughout the novel and reveal a close yet clearly fractured family. Jack was obviously very close to his mother and his loss is complicated still further by the guilt he feels at not being able to save her. His visceral response to being near the lake where she drowned is evident throughout, even though Jack himself believes himself somehow deficient for not being appropriately stricken by her death. Meanwhile, his father Tomáš, who moved to Ireland after the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, has been taken to the mental hospital in Limerick, broken by the loss of his wife. However, the fragility of both his parents is quickly apparent; he recalls his mother’s tears and his father’s outbursts in their garden. Now separated from them both, there’s a poignant scene where he imagines trying to make Tom laugh as a subconscious coping mechanism to avoid his fears.
There is humour here too, however as Jack adjusts to living with Grace’s family. His Nana is the redoubtable matriarch of the household supported by his fiercely loyal Grandad. Their love for their family is uncompromising but never in doubt. Meanwhile, his uncles Theo and Haulie are unapologetically brash – they frequently burst into song and bicker constantly – but there are some touching moments as Jack recognises their empathetic wisdom behind the arguments and coarse jokes. His most complex relationships are arguably with his youngest uncle, JJ who is just a few years older than him, and his beautiful aunt Rose. JJ’s feelings towards Jack fluctuate between resentment and protectiveness while Jack himself is horrified at his unpredictable and visible physical responses to Rose. The humour of adolescent lust and subsequent embarrassment is never played for cheap laughs here and Donal Ryan depicts the mortifying maelstrom of teenage emotions and hormones with light-handed sensitivity.
As Jack attempts to come to terms with a loss he still doesn’t understand, he becomes frustrated by the secrets being withheld from him. Perhaps inevitably in this family, he doesn’t confront them, however, and his mirroring of their shame with his own is desperately sad. The meandering narrative told in three parts, Tempus Edax, Tempus Fugit and Tempus Imperator – Time devours, Time flies, Time rules supreme – echoes grief’s disruption of time. There are no simple answers or glib sentiments in Where are the Kings but Donal Ryan’s gentle reminder that, “things don’t stop being beautiful because ugly things happen” is perhaps expressed most powerfully in the final scenes and indeed sentence of the book.
Perceptive, tender and unflinchingly lyrical, Where are the Kings is character-driven fiction at its finest.
Where Are the Kings in published by Doubleday, purchasing links can be found here.
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About the Author
Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. The Spinning Heart was voted Irish Book of the Decade in 2016. In 2021 Donal became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won both Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. Donal has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014 and lives in Castletroy with his wife Anne Marie and their two children.
