RaveThe Kenyon ReviewThe opening paragraph of Kevin Barry’s debut novel describes the river that cuts through this futuristic Irish city, fallen to rabble and class divide, the all-knowing voice of his aptly-chosen, first-person omniscient narrator imbued with a musical prose that at once reels us in … City of Bohane’s success as a novel owes a large debt to Barry’s choices in language and point-of-view which allow us to dip in and out of this motley crew, each of them rife with brutality and vulnerability … Barry gives his characters the full attention they are due, no matter their role; in a few flashing lines, the individual is before us, living and breathing, drinking and scuffling. Barry isn’t afraid to linger, the omniscient first-person providing the advantages of third, and lures us closer, until we fall enamored.
