Although Sally Rooney gets all the press, my favorite contemporary Irish author is Kevin Barry. This is nothing against Rooney–though it wouldn’t hurt if she cracked a joke here and there–but Barry reminds me of my favorite types of conversationalists, those who can mix high ideas and low vocabulary, the philosophical and the utterly crude. You see this in his novel City of Bohane and his bruising collection There are Little Kingdoms, which I just read on my last trip to Galway. 

But my favorite is Night Boat to Tangier, which explores friendship and fatherhood and crime and betrayal, all through sharp, hilarious dialogue that’s both profane and rhythmic. 

Take this introduction to one of our “heroes,” Charlie Redmond.

 
“Charlie Redmond? The face somehow has an antique look, like a court player’s, medieval, a man who’d strum his lute for you. In some meadowsweet lair. Hot, adulterous eyes and again a shabby suit, but dapper shoes in a rusted-orange tone, a pair of suede-finish creepers that whisper of brothels, also a handsome green corduroy neck-tie. Also stomach trouble, bags like graves beneath the eyes, and soul trouble.”

The plot is tight, but secondary. Mostly you just want to hang out with Charlie and his old partner Maurice as they go on one last mission of redemption after decades of being complete fuck-ups.