User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Ian McGuire follows The North Water with this impressively researched, utterly brilliant, tautly plotted, historical noir, a tense thriller set amidst the fraught, deadly arena of the savage, no holds barred war between the British and the underground fight by the Irish for Independence in the 19th century, set in the dirt and grime of Manchester and America. Three Irishmen have been hanged, their deaths bestowing them with a martyrdom to the Irish community that serves as a rallying call for vengeance. James O'Connor has relocated to Manchester from Ireland for a new, more sober beginning, working with the police to quash any Fenian plots, although being Irish, he attracts little in the way of respect, liking or trust.
O'Connor runs informers and spies in the Irish community and rumours begin to reach him of a scarred man of interest. Hard man Stephen Doyle is an Irish American veteran of the civil war who steps off the boat into the city of Manchester, stepping off the same boat is O' Connor's nephew, 19 year old Michael Sullivan looking for work. Doyle and O'Connor circle each other as Doyle looks to pull off an audacious reckoning, a battle into which young Sullivan is drawn into. In the most thrilling and suspenseful of narratives, we learn of the past histories of the two men, the tragedies that O'Connor could hardly bear, his struggles with the demon drink, and a life spiralling out of his control that led to his deployment in Manchester, and the backstory, violence and events that shaped the brutal man that is Doyle .
O'Connor ends up going to America, the conclusion of the novel the most surprising, almost completely out of the blue, gut wrenching, bleakest and shell shock of a ending. McGuire's powerful, vivid, convincing storytelling of retribution is never less than compulsive, gripping the reader by the throat, with events and a dynamics that echo the nature of British history with the Irish. There are times when it feels so loaded, even overloaded with tension, this is a period historical thriller that packs one hell of a punch, a punch that is likely to leave an indelible mark on the reader. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Simon and Schuster for an ARC.
Rating: really liked it
My first novel by the acclaimed Author turned out to be compelling for its background and characters. This historical fiction tackles the Fenians, who in the second half of the 19th century plotted, not always successfully, against the English, or the Crown, as it is put in the novel.
The plot is based on two protagonists, both Irish by birth but of different alliegences, who become engaged in a conspiracy in Manchetser in 1867. James O'Connor, now serving in the British Polisce, and Stephen Doyle, a former Civil War soldier who is hired to conduct a successful attack on the English authority. The duel between these two strong characters did give me shivers.
This book is a slow-burner, with good historical background of the places and the times.
*Many thanks to Ian McGuire, Simon ans Schuster UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
Rating: really liked it
Now this is what historical fiction should be! The Abstainer truly transports you to 1867 Manchester England. Three Fenians are due to be hanged and the worry is whether retribution will be sought. Head Constable O’Connor has left Ireland to start anew in England. His job is to discover what the Fenians’ plans might be.
The Fenians have brought in Doyle from the US. A Civil War vet. “They say you’ve come to cause trouble.”
The book pits man against man, both fighting for a cause they believe in. Each with an entirely different idea of justice. McGuire shows us each man’s mindset and makes them feel very real.
McGuire does a wonderful job of giving us a time and place, even down to the smells. Even the insignificant scenes, like a ratting contest, seem thoroughly researched and laid out. The writing is gorgeous. “He remembers the taste of whiskey on his tongue, like a long, deep cavern he could crawl into and be safe.”
This is a dark, gruesome story. It’s not for the faint of heart. I was totally invested in this book. Towards the end, it went in a very different direction than I anticipated. And I can’t say I appreciated or even understood the ending. So, what would have been a five star book, ends up as a four star.
My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
Rating: really liked it
Well, colour me disappointed. After the thrill ride that was Ian McGuire’s
The North Water—that propulsive, addictive, historical adventure splattered with garish violence—I had high hopes for this follow-up. But
The Abstainer, a police procedural set in 1860s Manchester in the aftermath of an Irish nationalist uprising, is a beige affair.
The protagonist, Jimmy O’Connor, is such a nothing character, remaining passive or at best, reactive, for most of the book. He’s neither good nor particularly bad at his job as a copper, he doesn’t do anything clever or stupid, things just happen around—and to—him… and then quite often they unhappen, with reversals that negate any attempt the book makes at a plot.
There’s no rising tension, no propulsion, no character development to speak of. Murders and reprisal killings happen ‘off stage’. Meanwhile we get to be present for… every staid meeting O’Connor has with his superiors. It’s just dull.
The ending, I think, will strike most readers as jarring and tacked on—a sudden switch to a very minor character, after Jimmy’s fate has been dealt with, once again, ‘off stage’—but I actually kind of liked it, because at least it caught me off guard? It’s a weird ending, maybe not in a good way, but it was unexpected if nothing else.
The Abstainer is not really a ‘bad’ book—it’s not interesting enough to be bad—it’s just not much of anything.
Rating: really liked it
The year is 1867 and we make the acquaintance of James O’Connor, Head Constable of police in Manchester. It’s a difficult time for the city as three men are about to be hung for the killing of a policeman. The men are all members of a gang of Fenians, a secret society whose intention is to end British rule in Ireland. Tensions are running high in Manchester as it’s likely there will be a reaction to the executions, so O’Connor is working his network of ‘spies’ in an effort to gain some understanding of what retribution the Fenians might be planning. In addition, he’s fighting some demons of his own: he recently left Dublin to take up this post having fallen foul of his bosses in Ireland for taking to the drink, this following the death of his young wife. His present role represents a chance for a fresh start, but the temptation to grab a tipple is a constant companion. He is the abstainer.
Stephen Doyle is an Irish-American, a scarred veteran of the civil war. He’s a born soldier and not only is he drawn by the romance of a cause he also takes pleasure in the fighting itself. And now he’s travelling to England to join up with the Fenians, his aim being to cause damage and send a message to the English. Doyle and O’Connor are on a crash course, what mayhem will result and who will ultimately prevail?
Having read the author’s superb novel The North Water I was somewhat prepared for a dark noirish tale. I wasn’t disappointed, this book delivers big on atmosphere and character development – I was instantly delivered to the grimy streets of the capital of the North and met two protagonists who are complex and flawed and both, in their own way, totally captivating. I rooted for O’Connor, who was not only fighting the burning desire to find solace in a bottle but also has to deal with the rampant bigotry of many of his colleagues and his superiors. But in Doyle he’s surely found a foe that is more than a match for him, hasn’t he? Then a nephew he hasn’t seen for many years turns up at the policemen’s door and it’s not clear whether this is to prove a blessing or a curse. Soon the nephew too is embroiled in the hunt for the mysterious American O’Connor’s spies have said is now amongst them.
The action and the language is brutal, this is certainly not a soft read. But if you’ve the stomach for it then there’s a huge amount here to appreciate - the narrative is a taut a guitar string and although the pace is relatively slow this just means that the tension is ratcheted up page by page. It’s a brilliant piece of writing. I just love the way that McGuire does not allow the reader an easy escape, on the evidence of the two books I’ve read his preference is to sweat you, to make you think and when it’s over to place something in your head that will be there for some time.
My sincere thanks to Simon & Schuster UK and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
Mr McGuire’s previous novel
The North Water was disgusting, unnecessarily gruesome, unrestrainedly brutal and soaked with bodily fluids from every possible orifice and I loved it so I am not sure what it says about me that I found this one far too tasteful and reasonable even though there are fairly regular murders, some child abuse and most of the characters have no manners at all.
The present-tense blanded-out reportage style didn’t help much. He does this, then he does that then he does a third thing. For instance
He pulls himself out of the tanning pit and takes the barrow out to the frosted-over mulch pile. When he gets back to the yard, he tells Neary that the bark grinder has jammed again and needs to be looked at. He waits for Neary to leave, then wheels the empty barrow around the perimeter of the yardAlso – now I’m feeling really mean – sometimes the dialogue is just a string of clapped out cliches :
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Thompson says…
“You’re a smart enough fellow, O’Connor,” he says. “But you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are”…
“I’m no more a traitor than you are.”This is a bit groanworthy.
Oh dear, and the plot was kind of dreary too – for most of the book the bold Fenians are trying to foment rebellion in Manchester against the English oppressors but there are traitors in their midst. Is it him? No, it's him. But he thinks it's him. Well, maybe it was him. Hmmm, yeah. Wake me up when you’ve caught them all.
The story kicks into life in the last third when our antihero pursues his man back to America, but by that time there’s been much too much of murky Manchester.
This is a perfectly okay straightforward mediumsized fast-reading historical novel. But I like it blacker, bitterer, more rancid. So I hope Ian McGuire will soon get back to what he’s good at - appalling violence, dogs, whales, horror and despair.
Rating: really liked it
Damaged boys grow into damaged men, and this book is full of examples of that. James O’Conner, with vengeance as his heritage, is still mourning his wife. Now a Constable in Manchester he is tasked with ferreting out a plot by the Fenians, a not-so-secret society determined to end British rule in Ireland. The Fenians have acquired assistance from America in the form of Stephen Doyle who ran from a difficult childhood and became a soldier. He’s still looking for wars to fight. Other boys become collateral damage in the interplay between these two. This is definitely not a run of the mill police procedural.
This book kept going in sad, dark directions until the heartbreaking ending which I was not expecting. The writing was beautiful and I’m very glad that I read the book. I was actually reluctant to read it because I hated the author’s much-lauded book “The North Water”. I was repelled and disgusted by everything in that book from the first chapter. Fortunately for me, I gave the author another chance.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Rating: really liked it
The year is 1867 and the setting is Manchester, England. Three members of the Fenian Brotherhood (an organisation striving for Irish independence) have been hanged for taking part in the murder of a policeman. James O'Connor is an Irishman in the local police force, transferred from Dublin in the hope of escaping grief and a serious drinking problem. O'Connor has an informer in the Brotherhood and learns that they have hired Stephen Doyle, a bloodthirsty US Civil War soldier, to exact revenge for the hangings. Matters are complicated further by the arrival of O'Connor's nephew, Michael Sullivan, who claims to have met Doyle on the boat from New York. When O'Connor is beaten one night and his notes on the investigation taken, the situation threatens to spiral out of all control. It becomes a race against time to prevent further bloodshed.
The sadness that O'Connor tries to run from is the death of his wife, and it threatens to consume him. He is haunted by her memory, yet he knows that there is also a fate worse than this:
"It is painful to remember her still so alive, the press of her hand on his shoulder and the pale part of her coal black hair, but the thought that one day that pain might fade or disappear completely is worse. Forgetting is the final betrayal, he thinks. The pain is what is left of the love, and when that pain is gone there is nothing."
Later on, the heartbreak seems to have got the better of him:
"Time becomes memory, and memory becomes the ditch in which we drown."
I was a fan of Ian McGuire's previous novel The North Water, an exciting, gruesome tale with a memorable cast. I didn't find this one quite as gripping - the stakes just didn't seem as high and the violence has been toned down. But I thought that the characters had more depth this time around, especially O'Connor, a tragic and sympathetic figure. I encountered no real surprises for the majority of the story, but the third act took an unusual and welcome turn. McGuire displays his customary flair for period detail, a grimy and dangerous Manchester coming to life under his pen. I feel as though he is honing his skills as a historical novelist, and look forward to reading his next effort.
Rating: really liked it
Ho-Hum.
I was excited to get this novel, which I picked up off the New Fiction shelf of my recently re-opened public library. I had read good things about McGuire, with some writers going so far as to compare him to Cormac McCarthy (one of my favorite writers), as did Philipp Meyer who on one of the book’s blurbs observed that the novel was “part Cormac McCarthy and part Raymond Chandler.” That’s a cool combination—but can anybody be that good?
Maybe, but not McGuire, at least not in this novel (I still plan to read his earlier and even more highly praised work, The North Water). While McGuire might share something with McCarthy and Chandler in terms of his novel’s subject—dark and violent doings by dark and violent people—what he doesn’t share is McCarthy’s and Chandler’s extraordinary gift for language. Pick up a novel by either of these two writers and you are immediately carried away by the taut precision of their prose. The rhythms and cadences of their sentences, the gorgeous (if at times brutal) descriptions, are unmistakable—their prose is their signature, or at least one of their signatures. McGuire on the other hand tells a good story but his prose is about as noteworthy as that from a cookbook from the 1950s (I realize cookbooks these days have gotten quite literary).
Ok, so about the plot: The Abstainer is a historical thriller set in the late 1860s, pitting two antagonists, a constable from Ireland who has been transferred to Manchester (he’s gotten into trouble with his drinking) and an American who has been sent by supporters of the Fenians (Irish separatists) to wreak havoc upon the British. Both men are essentially loners who find themselves working amongst people whom they don’t trust and upon whom they can’t rely; their co-workers feel the same way about them. The novel thus follows two fundamental plot lines: the cat-and-mouse interplay between the constable and the terrorist; and the two men’s efforts to complete their tasks amidst the fraught internal dynamics of their respective organizations. There are lots of twists and turns, particularly at the end, where the face-off between the two men continues in America.
So, all in all, a good enough read if you’re looking for a historical cop thriller set (mostly) in tough and grimy Manchester. The novel’s engaging enough, for its plot though certainly not for its prose. Returning to the cookbook analogy: McGuire’s recipe in the end delivers, regardless of its awkwardly-written directions.
Rating: really liked it
Like many readers, I was drawn to
The Abstainer by McGuire’s striking 2016 Booker-longlisted
North Water. I suspect I’m in a minority in preferring
The Abstainer. It’s a quieter, less splashy, less Tarantinoesque novel, and I can see that it might look more conventional at first sight. I liked it a lot, though—I felt it had more emotional depth than
North Water and that it was somehow more mature and less attention-seeking. The descriptive writing and the handling of dialogue is excellent in both books.
I also didn’t think
The Abstainer actually was particularly conventional. It adopts a ‘genre fiction’ subject-matter (historical detective novel), with some potentially cliched aspects (world-weary ex-alcoholic cop pitted against faintly
alter ego-ish nemesis), but it doesn’t follow the usual scripts in the way it develops. I felt McGuire was adopting a genre fiction mode as a vehicle for what is essentially a meditation on universal philosophical-existential topics: memory, personal and collective, and the ways in which it shapes identity; the psychology of revenge, again both personal and collective; the different ways in which we seek meaning in a cruel and indifferent world. The genre aspect is ultimately as much a red herring with McGuire as it is with Ishiguro, when the latter ventures into science fiction or Arthurian romance.
That’s not to say that the immediate, political thrillerish subject-matter of
The Abstainer lacks interest. The novel opens with the hanging of the ‘Manchester Martyrs’ in 1867, Fenian sympathisers executed for the killing of a policeman, and the bulk of the narrative is set in Manchester in the febrile atmosphere that follows this event. The interplay between the Fenians, the police informants, and the policemen themselves is handled in a taut, claustrophobic, morally ambiguous manner, and the period detail is vivid (I won’t forget a graphic depiction of the wholesome Victorian pastime of rat-baiting in a hurry).
The last third of the novel spins off into unpredictable territory, and I suspect how much you like it will depend a lot on how you experience this swerve. It’s an audacious move formally, to take you out of the setting that McGuire has created so meticulously, but for me it works. It gives the narrative something of the character of a ‘pilgrim’s progress’ and shifts it from the realist territory it first seemed to inhabit. The final chapter is still more of a departure—yet, again, I felt it worked, connecting with the underlying philosophical concerns of the novel, even as it shoots off into the near-void in narrative terms.
I’ll certainly be looking out for McGuire’s next novel. He’s already the finished item in terms of technical skill, but I feel he’s still questing in terms of his vision. He may yet be to hit his best form.
Rating: really liked it
My reviews don't seem to show up anymore? Wonder if this is seen? Don't know if it's just me or a bug with GR 🤔
3.5 stars. Enjoyed this much more then the first book I've read by Ian McGuire, but it wasn't the most enjoyable read either. But entertaining enough
Rating: really liked it
I was so prepared to rate this puppy a 5-star, and I pushed thru til the end, as I was on edge waiting to see the final showdown.
Then, the last chapter happened, and that burned out a whole star.
This was such a powerful, and intense novel. Emotional and gritty, short as it was, it packed a punch. I admire how the author surprised me, how unpredictable this story was.
But goddammit, why did it end THIS WAY??
Rating: really liked it
“The Abstainer”, the new novel by Ian McGuire, is as captivating and perfectly-paced as his last, “The North Water”. In fact, I am going to plagiarize MY OWN review of “The North Water” as it applies perfectly here:
“McGuire has accomplished four important things with this novel, 1) he has clearly researched the history and the mechanics of his subject matter, 2) he is a talented writer whose graphic description brings this story vividly to the reader's imagination, 3) his excellent sense of plot pacing propels the story forward in a thrilling and suspenseful fashion, and 4) he has created characters the reader can care about; from his flawed "hero" to his vile villains.”
The eponymous “Abstainer” is police detective James O’Conner. It’s 1867 in Manchester, England. O’Connor has been exiled from Dublin, for after his wife died, he went on a bender that caused trouble. Now maintaining his sobriety, he assists the Manchester police with quelling the Fenian uprisings and violence against the English.
Along comes O’Connor’s nephew-by-marriage, nineteen year old, Michael Sullivan, fresh off the boat from America. The boat that brought Sullivan also brought a “killer”, Stephen Doyle who arrives to make trouble for the English.
Soon the Manchester police want to use O’Conner’s nephew to trap Doyle and here is where McGuire crafts a masterful plot; like any good “sting” story, the reader isn’t privy to all the details, so we are surprised along with some of the characters.
“The Abstainer” has a feel of an old fashioned Detective/Western/Chase story, (in a great way) and it works. It’s immediately engaging and historically “gritty”. We come care about sad-sack O’Connor, our anti-hero, very much. And that brings me to the ending…
Without giving it away, I must say that the ending is very strange and I don’t understand McGuire’s intention. I abhor spoilers in reviews so that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I must also say that it didn’t “ruin” the novel for me, just that it made me want to call up Mr. McGuire and say; “WTF man?!?” and hear what his explanation is!
Rating: really liked it
Loosely based on English efforts to stop an Irish rebellion in the 1860s, Abstainer focuses on Jimmy O’Connor, a detective in the Manchester Police Force. Like most literary detectives, O’Connor has a past and struggles with his demons. All of this gets him trouble and on a journey that ends in a very weird way. While McGuire does a nice job of creating an atmosphere and a set of fairly well-developed characters, plot changes happen in an almost too convenient way. The ending is some kind of add-on that is unnecessary and almost from another book.
Rating: really liked it
There’s an old rebel song – The Smashing of the Van – that tells the sorry take of three Irishmen who tried to spring two Fenian leaders from a prison van in Manchester in 1867. Because they “chanced to kill a man”, the three Irishmen were hanged from a gallows outside Manchester prison.
This is where The Abstainer takes up the tale.
The three martyrs were the best recruiting call the Fenians could have hoped for. Irishmen up and down the land were willing to rise up and claim their freedom. The Manchester brigade were willing to think big, and they had invited Stephen Doyle, an Irish-American, to cross the Atlantic and pull off a coup that would make the Brits sit up and take notice.
On the other side, Leading Constable Jimmy O’Connor – drafted across from the Irish Constabulary to sort out his personal demons and drink – ran a network of spies to infiltrate the Fenian movement. This was organised intelligence in its infancy.
So, for two thirds of the novel we have cat and mouse between O’Connor and Doyle in a fairly routine historical police procedural. There are some wonderful scenes – particularly a meeting of the Fenians in the pub to welcome a new member. I’m not completely convinced by the dialogue; some of the characters seemed to use modern idiom that might have made the characters feel more identifiable, but also reduced some of the historical edge.
Then, at the two thirds point, things get very surreal. It would be a spoiler to explain why, but there is a major paradigm shift that causes us to question what we already knew, and causes us to wonder whether we are reading a police procedural at all. It reminded me more than a little of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman.
Then, right at the end, there’s a coda set in the US that feels almost as though it belongs to a different book. No easy answers, no happy ever after.
Gosh, it’s weird.
