‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry

Were it almost any author but Sebastian Barry, the slow unwinding of the first 115 pages of this 260-page novel might be enough to dissuade a reader from plugging on. Yes, Barry writes a stream-of-consciousness narrative that would make Joyce proud, but being immersed chapter after chapter after chapter in the mind of a man who, at the very least, is suffering from early dementia, requires some stamina.

Granted, the opening pages offer an intriguing premise. Tom Kettle, a recently retired policeman living in the Dublin suburb of Dalkey, receives a mysterious visit from two Dublin detectives. Wilson and O’Casey ask Tom to come down to his old nick to consult on a case involving that staple of Irish life and literature, the molesting priest. The novel seems ready for liftoff, but it isn’t until Chapter Eight that Tom finally manages to make the ten-mile journey into town to meet with the detectives.

In the meantime, through flashbacks and fantasies, we learn a lot about the protagonist. Tom is an orphan who was raised in a violent and sexually abusive Catholic institution for unwanted children, as was his beloved late wife, June. Together, the couple swore they would protect their own two children, Winnie and Joseph, and they do seem to have been model parents, the opposite of the “villains” who did everything possible to suck the life and spirit from the young people in their care. As a cop, Tom was steady and meticulous, but never promoted above Detective Sergeant, and we sense that some further but as yet unrevealed trauma accounts for his relative lack of ambition and the dreamy, often careless way he now lives his life.