Synopsis

Matthew Cooney and Donal Mannion shared their time as boys in a rundown neighborhood, without fathers, without comfort, without a sense of tomorrow, then went their separate ways, one to chase the trappings of maturity, the other to the streets. Their days shrouded in boredom, their nights filled with the thrill of the chase, each sought his place and his purpose.

Within their struggles are the challenges of escape, of outrunning the roll of the dice that placed them where they are, and, in the end, of defining what it means to be alive, to constantly strive for the things that are just out of reach.

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Praise

“Fields’ novel masterfully delves into the lives of flawed protagonists, revealing their lifelong struggles and isolation. The prose is both profound and moving, poignantly capturing their journey from hopeful youth to troubled adults. A compelling read that resonates with tragic realism and literary excellence.” – Glenn R. Miller, Author of Doorman Wanted

“In elegant and elegiac prose, Fields illustrates the inner workings of inherited trauma from Irish plight of famine, diaspora, alcoholism, and loss of identity and family. Poignant and profound.” – Deborah Hufford, Author of Blood to Rubies, Book of the Year, Gold Medal Winner of the Ben Franklin Award for Literary Fiction and an Amazon Top Ten Bestseller

“With this novel, Greg Fields has once again firmly established himself in the ranks of America’s finest fiction writers.” – Ray Carson Russell, Author of Philurius College Blues

Excerpt

“There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.”
—Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

Emma, stripped now of the cumbersome burden of a derelict husband, felt at first the rush of a heady freedom. There would be no more arguments, no threat of the back of a hand or a voice raised so loudly that it reverberated off walls too thin to muffle such abuse. She would spend her days working quietly and tending to the wonder of her son.

But the nights were another matter, and Emma sank too soon into loneliness and loss. She was still young, still attractive enough to draw the attention of men. What chance to do so, though, and really, what was the point? To her mind men brought pleasure in small measures and pain in huge doses. So at night she would feed young Donal, play with him or watch him play with his toys, then put him to bed. Quiet, then, into these nights that contrasted so starkly with her husband’s boisterous and often violent enthusiasms, that filled with the empty blathering of evening television or the ticking of clocks. And as baby Donal grew, the quiet grew more intense, pressed into her tender core like a wound, and the loneliness turned to acid.

She did not know when the drinking began. At some point, when the despair crept under her doorway like a fog, she turned to a bottle, just to take the edge off, she told herself, and to help her sleep. Emma had no predisposition to alcohol. As a young woman she drank socially, and never alone. But aloneness had a different meaning now. No comfort in it, no healing, no reflection or regeneration. A permanent condition it was, nothing soothing about it, and no end in sight. So the easing of it became a nightly ritual. Emma felt the despair of being locked in place, and the place she was locked into was dank and still. As Donal grew and became more self-sufficient, she had more time to herself, more of what she did not want. No point to any of it, she told herself. She grew slovenly, the house untended and neighbors ignored, a spiral drawing toward the destitution of her soul and the collapse of dreams. Mother and son moved to a smaller place in a corner of the city that no one cared about. The bottles moved with them, and Emma faded it seemed by the day.

Emma considered the whimsical playfulness of the Fates, the whispers of Chance, the guiding hand of unseen Providence, unseen and unknowable until the manifestations of their games become apparent. What confluence of accidents had led a brash young man to abandon his native land to come to a new country and spawn a generation of sons, one of whom would claim a naïve girl to mother a son whose soul was plucked from the ether to carry forward that very name?

Would there be a Donal Mannion born in Washington if Caesar had not crossed into Gaul, if Charles Martel had fathered a daughter rather than a son, if Strongbow had not seized Dublin in 1170, or if the French fleet had successfully landed in 1798? Does a farmer’s flirtation with a country lass in County Clare in 1825 lead to a newborn’s cry in 1964? We are, all of us, the outcome of accident, and chance, and folly, and every life is the compendium of innumerable intertwined threads that span the centuries that came before us.

And if young Donal’s father had decided to stay, had found within himself the commitment to wife and son that he so clearly lacked. What then? Would Donal Mannion have grown up in a shoddy and shabby neighborhood, scrambling to find food enough to fill his stomach and motivation enough to drive his days? Would his mother have spent her days fretting over a son tending wild? Or would the boy have known temperance and balance, or slept in a comfortable bed in a warm and wide house with room enough for friends and dreams? Would the magic genie of youth grant his wishes for security and strength and purpose?

Donal Mannion became what he was to be, the complex product of forces centuries old from across the seas, and the immediacy of impulses in the next room. Unknowable, and as immutable as time itself.

About the Author

Greg Fields is the author of Through the Waters and the Wild, winner of the 2022 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction, the Independent Publishers Association Award, the New York Book Award for Literary Fiction and two other national recognitions.  His first novel, Arc of the Comet, was published in 2017.  He is currently an editor for his publisher, Koehler Books, and has presented at several writers conferences, including the International Dublin Writers Festival, the Bay Area Book Fair, and Central Coast Writers Conference.

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