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Milkman had such an impact on me that I’ve waited a couple of weeks to write a review, to see if I still think it’s one of the most original, gripping novels I’ve ever read.

I do.

I can see from reading other’s reviews that some have labelled it as difficult to read. But I’m with A. N. Devers, who wrote in her review in the L.A times

‘Don’t let this do anything but persuade you to read and absorb it. The difficulty is only in settling into a fresh voice and style that are dense, yes, but that would not work or be anywhere near as revelatory or transporting in any other format. It should go without saying that a novel with the setting of Northern Ireland in the late 20th century should not be an “easy�� read. It would be a dishonest book and a failure. There is too much to contend with.��

I think it’s a brilliant success, managing to convey the fear, hatred and despair that dominate this fatally conflicted Northern Irish community during the troubles, here known as ‘the problems�� or ‘the sorrows��, yet creating characters and situations full of humour.

In this community, both behaviours and ways of thinking are tightly controlled by dominant groups. People are never called by name, but by position in the family (the narrator is Middle Sister), other relationship �� maybe-boyfriend, or nickname ��
Milkman, nuclear boy. Names are dangerous, as they told whether you were one of us, one those ‘from over the road�� or, worse, from ‘over the water��. Names are labels that divide and betray.

The controllers are the renouncers (men), the pious women, and family members who insist on proper thinking and proper behaviour so that you won’t stand out, won’t be noticed by the renouncers (brutal enforcers) or the soldiers from the other side. Gossip is a mainstay of community life, and another control mechanism. Those who don't stay within the bounds set by the controllers are punished physically (beating, murder) or ostracised �� labelled as beyond-the-pale.

Keeping people and location nameless gives the book a sort of universality that would not be possible if all were named and place details pinned down.

Middle Sister’s strategy to keep her head down is reading-while-walking; nineteenth century novels because, understandably, she doesn't like the twentieth. But this brings attention to her and eventually she finds she has become beyond-the-pale herself.
In particular she attracts the attention of Milkman, one of the toughest renouncer leaders.

Burns conveys the psychological stresses that her characters endure, and the changes they undergo. For instance, Middle Sister’s observations of her progressive reactions to being stalked by tough-renouncer Milkman range through fear to a numbed sense of inevitability and the victim retreats so far into herself that her will and her self become effectively paralysed. The surrounding community has become inured to violence, grief is barely allowed.

The menace of Milkman’s stalking of Middle Sister shocks when it first appears. Tension rises with his reappearances, the threats against maybe-boyfriend, and the increasing isolation the narrator feels when her denials that she has deliberately attracted the Milkman and is his mistress are disbelieved.

Tension is released over and again when Burns heads into what I think of as side bubbles, often very funny, in which she tells of the pious women (who end up as ex-pious women), the man who didn't love anyone, renouncer groupies, the women-with-the issues (infected by ideas from ‘over the water��), her mother, her wee sisters.

Once the tension is released, she rebuilds it, so the dramatic form of the novel is complex, a series of whorls overlying a long narrative thread.

The ending rather fizzles away, as we know from the first sentence that Milkman dies. But perhaps it’s necessary that, once the major threat is removed, life can at least appear to return to normal.


Some reviews I have appreciated:

Ben Hunter’s review on booktopia








First Notes.
This is an extraordinary book. Wonderful.
Full of menace, violence and sexual predation yet very funny. Brilliant.

I’ll need time to write a review, in the meantime here is a link to Ron Charles from the Washington Post: