The Eskimo in the Net (Paperback)

Unsubstantial first novel about an Irish fisherman whose life is thrown into a psychic turmoil when he finds a dead Eskimo trapped in one of his nets. Jim Gallagher is a dark, brooding Irishmen who seems to carry his own gray cloud with him wherever he goes. Born and raised in a coastal town in Donegal, Jim has a kind of wanderlust that won't let him sit still for long. Not long ago, he spent several years in Alaska working in an oil refinery, but now he's back in his hometown, working a fishing boat with his childhood friend Knucky. One day on the boat, they are horrified to find a human corpse tangled up in one of their nets. Knucky figures it's the remains of someone buried at sea, but Jim recognizes the features as Esquimo. They bring the body into port and alert the harbor master, who hands the body over to the local police and washes his hands of the business. Perhaps Jim should have done the same. Instead, he's haunted by the incident, and turns the discovery over and over in his head. He also talks about it to Frances, a local bartender who is Knucky's on-again-off-again girlfriend, and Frances gets Jim to take her to see the body (which she proceeds to kiss on the lips). Jim and Knucky drink a lot and argue about whether they should have bothered hauling the body in. Eventually, Jim gets so drunk that he wakes up in bed with a woman he's never met before. She says goodbye to him. They never meet again. Begins well and ends badly: Beirne, an Irish poet and storywriter living in Canada, grabs our attention right away and proceeds to wander aimlessly through the rest of the tale. (Kirkus Reviews)

""Everything started to go wrong the day we dragged the Eskimo up in the net off Malin Head. I wasn't long back from Alaska, and it seemed as if he must have followed me halfways around the world. My initial instinct was to pull his chewed up corpse free from the mountain of fish and to roll him overboard, to let him sink back into the depths of the ocean where he had first appeared from, to watch him slip beneath the waves as if he had never surfaced in the first place. Knucky even suggested as much.""

When Jim Gallagher hauls the body of an unknown Eskimo up in his nets off the North West Coast of Ireland, the murky undercurrents of his own life get dragged to the surface. His obsession with finding out where the Eskimo came from, and how he met his watery death, fuses with his own search to understand his life in a small fishing village. Adrift in the mists of alcohol and poor health, Jim loses himself in mystery and subterfuge. Theresa, a returning immigrant, appears to offer the only hope, but as Jim sinks further all of his relationships are threatened. Drink, loneliness and the price of survival become the major themes in this subtly shaded and superbly handled literary debut from one of the best of the New Irish Writers.

Gerard Beirne is an Irish writer living in Canada. He was awarded the "Sunday Tribune"/Hennessy Best Emerging Fiction Writer and New Irish Writer awards in 1996. His work has been published in numerous journals including "Stet--Irish National Literary Magazine," the "Sunday Tribune "newspaper, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. His short story, "Sightings of Bono," was adapted into a short film by Parallel Productions, Ireland, featuring Bono.

General

Imprint:	Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	May 2003
First published:	November 2003
Authors:	Gerard Beirne
Dimensions:	198 x 129 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	320
ISBN-13:	978-0-7145-3093-2
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-7145-3093-X
Barcode:	9780714530932

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