Colin Walsh’s remarkably assured debut begins with an epigraph from Margaret Atwood. In Atwood’s 1988 novel Cat’s Eye, an artist returns to her Canadian home town only to be flooded with painful memories from her youth, particularly related to her estranged friend – and erstwhile bully – Cordelia. In Walsh’s novel, it is the eponymous Kala who plagues the memories of her former friends as they reunite for the first time in more than a decade in the Irish seaside village of Kinlough.
Spiky journalist Helen has returned, reluctantly, from Canada to attend her father’s wedding. LA-based rock star Joe Brennan is back for a series of gigs, basking in the role of local boy done (very) good. Meanwhile, sweet, self-conscious Mush never left – he still spends his days working in his mum’s coffee shop and his nights nursing cans of beer, wondering what might have been.
As wildly different as their lives now are, these three were once part of the close-knit group that had beautiful, magnetic Kala Lannan at its white-hot centre. However, at the end of the summer of 2003 she disappeared without a trace; 15 years on – the morning after her friends’ reunion – Kala’s remains are found on a building site at the edge of town.
The novel jumps back and forth between the resulting police investigation and the events of that fatal, sweltering summer. Here, Walsh meticulously captures the heady, hormonal rush of being a teenager – the life-or-death urgency of every decision, every drunken house party, every reckless reach towards adulthood: “The first taste of beer, the fluttering feeling of no longer being a kid stuck in the mucky sludge of the world.” These coming-of-age snapshots are steeped in nostalgia, triggered by faded Polaroids and old mixtapes, but there is also a looming sense of dread, given we know that tragedy awaits. Publishers are always comparing new thrillers to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History; with the strong group dynamic and the lingering promise of bloodshed, here the comparison is justified.
These sepia-toned memories are filtered through Helen, Mush and Joe’s alternating points of view. The first two have distinct first-person voices; by contrast, Joe’s chapters are written in the second person. This is a canny choice, mirroring the dissociative effect of fame and social media as Joe observes himself from a distance, constantly curating his image, his life, rather than experiencing anything first-hand: “The place is a universe in the scoop of your palm. Feel the staff glancing over. Affect a faraway look, like you’re seeing something on the horizon, like you’re the music. Bob Dylan expression.”
Kinlough also serves as a character in its own right, a village buzzing with visitors – beer gardens bursting at the seams, traditional music blaring from the speakers – all desperate to experience “the real Ireland”. Beneath the veneer, however, it is a place with a sinister underbelly. Gangs, corrupt police, buried secrets – in Walsh’s novel, there is something rotten at Kinlough’s core, and we soon discover that Kala’s death was not an isolated incident, but part of a wider network of violence.
After a slightly slow start, the momentum builds via a series of dramatic turns, culminating in a genuinely shocking twist. And yet, as with the novels of fellow Irish author Tana French, there is much to savour beyond the thrilling plot. The characterisation is particularly strong, each psychological portrait richly drawn; the prose is beautifully atmospheric throughout. Kala is both a genuine page-turner and a profound meditation on memory and how it shapes our lives – how our past selves forever haunt the people we become.
• Kala by Colin Walsh is published by Atlantic (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
