Kevin Barry, who is equally dedicated to the short story and the novel, has proved since the bog-gothic of his debut story collection, There Are Little Kingdoms (2007), that what marks him out is a restless originality. He has never repeated himself, each novel taking his talent in an unexpected direction. The Goldsmiths prize-winning Beatlebone (2015) was about John Lennon and his island off the coast of Ireland; his next novel, Night Boat to Tangier (2019), took two ageing drug dealers to southern Spain.
And now – Barry is always inspired by place – he has written an American novel, specifically a western, which my advance copy says was “25 years in the making”.
