History of the Rain: A Novel
*Starred Review* From her boat-shaped bed in the attic room of her family’s County Clare thatched-roof home, invalid Ruth Swain tries to uncover the secret of her father’s tortured life. She is surrounded by the thousands of books he devoured, everything from Dostoyevsky to Dickens, García Marquez to Galsworthy. In the stories of others, Ruth hopes to find her own family’s story, which begins with her rigidly religious great-grandfather, who set in motion the Swain quest for impossibly high standards. The failure to meet them will resonate for generations, culminating in the struggles of her father, Virgil, a dreamer and fisherman, the Irish prerequisites for becoming a poet. His inspiration arrived the night Ruth and her twin brother, Aeney, were born; it died the day Aeney drowned. Now housebound with a mysterious ailment, Ruth wants to write her father’s story in a book of her own before she dies. You can smell the peat burning and feel the ever-present mist in acclaimed Irish novelist Williams’ (John, 2008) luscious paean to all who lose themselves in books. Williams captures the awe and all of Ireland—its myths and mysteries, miseries and magic—through the pitch-perfect voice of a saucily defiant young woman who has witnessed too much tragedy but who clings devotedly to those she’s lost. --Carol Haggas