‘Wild Houses’ by Colin Barrett (2024) – 255 pages
At the center of ‘Wild Houses’, the new novel by Irish author Colin Barrett is the hapless Dev Hendrick. Dev is in his late thirties. He lives by himself and keeps to himself out on his family farm, outside of town. He loved his mother, but she died a few years back.
“She could bear in on him of course, could berate, hound, and guilt-trip him like any mother, but she was the only living presence he could bear when he was at his lowest. Which was often. For as far back as he could remember, he had been prone to long consuming lows, but only ever felt half-alive, and half the time he wasn’t even that. It was the mother who kept him going during the worst years. She had.”
Only an Irish novel would have an unfortunate case like Dev as its “hero”. That is why I really like good Irish novels such as ‘Wild Houses’. I like that the characters in these novels are not defined by their income or their position, but instead are allowed to wander their own ways. I find it humorous yet realistic. Happily or sadly, they are humans.
Dev did have a job but quit it without a good reason back when his mother was still alive. His father is housed in town where they keep the severe mental cases. Dev has never gone to visit his father.
The drug dealers in town store their drugs they are going to sell on Dev’s remote farm after he gave them permission to do so. Now two of them, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, show up on Dev’s farm unannounced. They have kidnapped a young guy, Doll English, who is still in high school. They are going to keep Doll at Dev’s farm, because Doll’s older brother Cillian English who is also a drug dealer owes them money. If Cillian doesn’t pay up, Doll’s life is in danger.
Most of the male characters are either criminals or mental cases. The women are given a little more leeway. Nicky, the main female character is a bartender at one of the town’s many pubs. The young guy Doll had been out at the town bars with Nicky. They got separated that evening, and Nicky at first doesn’t realize that Doll’s been kidnapped. Nicky winds up at the final showdown.
There is very little explication or explanation of actions, thoughts, or feelings in ‘Wild Houses’. Colin Barrett does not force his characters to be a certain way. They are who they are, and nothing more can be said.
So what we have here is a wild Irish crime novel with offbeat characters. While this cast of off-the-wall crazies makes for an amusing fun ride, ‘Wild Houses’ also works as a well-plotted crime story.
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on May 13, 2024 at 5:50 PM
Didn’t The Guardian review this one a few months ago, to general praise? If not, I read the review in some other major site. I thought it sounded promising, an impression confirmed by your post. Right now I’m deep into early Hilary Mantel (Every Day Is Mother’s Day); when I finish I’ll be ready to check out some contemporary fiction. I think this one will go high on the list!
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Posted by Anokatony on May 13, 2024 at 6:06 PM
Hi Janakay,
I probably did read the Guardian review, but I had also read Colin Barrett’s first fiction, a collection of stories called ‘Homesickness’, which I really liked.
I still remember when ‘Wolf Hall’ took over the fiction world. Of her earlier work, I believe I read ‘Beyond Black’.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on May 13, 2024 at 7:24 PM
For some reason, I became a big Mantel fan before her Wolf Hall mania hit the world. I actually read Mother’s Day a zillion years ago but didn’t remember much about it, except it was dark, dark, dark; it’s interesting to go back to it after so many years. How did you like Beyond Black BTW? I loved it, but I have the impression that many readers did not.
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Posted by Anokatony on May 13, 2024 at 9:25 PM
I actually don’t remember anything about ‘Beyond Black’ besides reading it. That was before ‘Wolf Hall’.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on May 14, 2024 at 4:09 AM
#wavesinexcitement, me too, me too!
I found Beyond Black in a library back in 2005 and I loved, loved, loved the weirdness of it. It was before blogs and before the Book Depository so we were stuck with what was on offer in book shops and libraries. (There were Special Orders, of course, but (a) the expense (b) the 6-12 week wait if you were lucky and (c) you had to know what to order in the first place. No Wikipedia with a handy list of author’s works.
Then the Wolf Hall phenomenon, and halleluiah! Between the library discovering her back list and the Book Depository, I got my hands on Every Day is Mother’s Day, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Fludd (woo hoo!) Eight Months on Ghazzah Street.
IMHO it’s that darkness in her early work that paved her way to writing Wolf Hall.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on May 14, 2024 at 4:31 AM
Yeah Lisa! Another fan of HM! I loved the first two Wolf Hall novels (can’t bring myself to read the third) but — in some ways I prefer Mantel’s earlier work (IMO it’s every bit as interesting). And yes, I do remember those days of frustration, when it could be so desperately hard to secure what I wanted to read!
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Posted by Lisa Hill on May 14, 2024 at 5:09 AM
I have two of hers on the TBR A Place of Greater Safety and A Change of Climate, but I want to read them without that sense of loss brought on by her untimely death, so I’m waiting a while.
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Posted by Cathy746books on May 13, 2024 at 8:20 PM
I enjoyed this one, the dialogue was excellent but I thought the plotting was a bit predictable.
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Posted by Anokatony on May 13, 2024 at 9:32 PM
Hi Cathy,
It would be interesting to compare Kevin Barry with Colin Barrett. They both write humorous Irish stories, but so far Barry’s stories have a wider range.
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