Only with Blood

In Ireland during World War II, farmer Jack Flynn decides he needs a wife who can bear him a child to inherit his land. He marries Caitlin Spillane, a beautiful and headstrong young woman less than half his age, by the arrangement of her father. A secondary plot traces the growing involvement of Donal Kelly, a young schoolteacher, in the IRA's underground war against British influence. Caitlin's and Donal's paths cross as both of them balance the claims of duty, family, and their own needs. Down spins a web of psychologically complex characters who hurt others and are hurt themselves; the back story of the emotionally stunted Jack, abandoned by his mother as a child and carrying the burden of his own IRA involvement in his youth, is especially haunting. It certainly helps to know Irish politics and nationalism; some of the references in the English author's narrative are obscure. The strength of the Down's story is not its history but rather its characters and their sad, intertwined longings. (July)