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This book won the Man Booker Prize in 2018. Its fame comes from the distinctive 'Voice of Middle Sister.' So it’s a 'voice' book that makes me think of others: the Scottish brogue of Swing Hammer Swing by Jeff Torrington or The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus.

The book has thousands of reviews on GR so I’ll go easy on the summary. You’ll probably like it - or you won’t. There is a dichotomy in the reviews with mostly 4’s and 5’s but many 1’s and 2’s and a lot of DNFs.



The 'Voice': this isn’t a quote but a list of vocabulary to give an example: “Ach aye yeah, middle sister, wee sisters, my maybe-boyfriend, his maybe-girlfriend, renouncers, the opposite religion, over-the-water, over the border, this side of the road, that side of the road, it’s not wee buns, ach aye no…�

Here’s an example of the voice from a passage where her mother talks to her about her deceased father. “She meant depressions, for da had had them: big, massive, scudding, whooping, black-cloud, infectious, crow, raven, jackdaw, coffin-upon-coffin, catacomb-upon-catacomb, skeletons-upon-skulls-upon-bones crawling along the ground to the grave type of depressions.�

There is very little back-and-forth dialog, but passages of conversation are included in the one paragraph per page structure.



The story is all centered on the euphemistically called 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland especially from the late 1960s through 1988. The author was born in 1962, so she lived in Belfast during most of this time and was ten at the time of peak violence, 1972. More than 3,500 people were killed in the violence from shootings and bombings, or shot by British soldiers or by paramilitary groups on each side � Catholic and Protestant � her 'opposite religions.' This is a huge number of deaths for a city the size of, say, Toledo, Ohio or Plymouth, UK.

Every family in the story is touched by the violence in some way, and in those days, Catholics had large families. In the main character’s family, she has had a brother shot and a brother-in-law killed by a car bomb. Another brother is on the run because he is wanted for violence by the police. An older sister can never return because she married someone of the 'opposite religion' and went to live in England.

Daily life is shaped by the conflict. Her maybe-boyfriend is in trouble for holding on to a British-made car part. There are ‘our shops� and ‘their shops,� the right kind of butter, the TV shows you can and can’t watch (James Bond movies are out) and the right and wrong kind of tea. There are forbidden first names for boys (no Clive, Wilfred, Norman, Keith, Edgar, Clifford or a dozen others).

Paramilitary guys on each side hold kangaroo courts to keep their people in line. You don’t call the police or an ambulance � that gets you notice from ‘the authorities. It’s likely they won’t come anyway for fear of an ambush. There are constant camera clicks as authorities take pictures from behind trees and in parked cars.

Middle Sister is odd and stands out. That's a mistake in that environment. She jogs and she reads while she walks. She attracts the attention of a paramilitary guy known as the Milkman, who stalks her. She’s 18 and her mother has been after her since she turned 16 to ‘do the proper thing� and get married and start having kids.



There’s good writing:

“No one has ever come across a cat apologizing and if a cat did, it would be patently obvious it was not being sincere.�

“I opened my mouth, not sure, to say something � or maybe just to have it hang open.�

I liked it but I gave it a 4, rather than a 5. It was quite good but it did seem to drag out a bit.

Top photo:IRA men going to plant a bomb, 1987, from belfasttelegraph.co.uk
A bomb as late as 1998 killed 29 people. From irishtimes.com
Photo of the author from economist.com

[Edited 3/31/22 and 9/8/23]