Dundalk author Paddy Carroll has released his third novel entitled ‘The Drifting Moments’. The book is a sequel to his very well received “Borrikeen- Unmasking Patrick Kavanagh” which was released in 2014. That book was billed as ‘an imaginative blend of fact and fiction, telling the absorbing story of the life and times of Patrick Kavanagh. In Borikeen, Kavanagh was given a fictional son called Maca by Paddy and it is Maca whose story is told in this sequel to Borrikeen.
The Drifting Moments which is published by Choice Publishing is a novel filled with astute and witty insights into human behaviour and motivations, written in a distinctive, lively prose, the drifting moments captured in vivid set pieces, offering the reader a very human perspective on life’s ups and downs. Paddy, a retired lawyer is from Dundalk and had been casually working on this book for a number of years before knuckling down during Covid before polishing it over the last year. According to Paddy it is a sequel to his much acclaimed book Borrikeen- Unmasking Patrick Kavanagh but it can be read as a standalone book without having to read it’s predecessor.
The story moves between Belfast and America in the 1950s and 1960s, a time of change and upheaval. Our wistful hero, Stephen MacAlindon known as Maca, is a boy of unknown parentage brought up by his loving adoptive parents.
Maca is intelligent and ambitious but has a wild streak which makes him kick against the traces in the conservative Catholic community he lives in. He gets to a prestigious Catholic grammar school and is doing well, but a reckless act results in him being sent to an industrial school “for the reform of delinquent boys”. He has a hard time there but his tenacity and intelligence enable him to get a scholarship to Queen’s University and the chance of a degree.
Given the opportunity to go to Boston, young Maca takes it and using his Belfast connections gets a job in an investment bank. All those qualities – intelligence, daring, drive and ambition – that got him into trouble in Belfast enable him to thrive in America. He rises in the bank and soon gets a promotion to the Stock Exchange floor in New York, a chance he is eager to take because it gets him away from Boston and a failed love affair. Freed from the oppressive cultural environment of his youth, religious and political, Maca on discovering the American way gains the confidence to find and express his true self.
In New York he finds his niche and a woman who loves him. He settles in and even becomes an American
citizen. However, he cannot escape Belfast and news from there, like the death of his father, calling him back.
Maca resists until loyalty to a friend gets him into trouble too big to gloss over as attempts to cover his friend’s mistake lead to ever increasing losses for the bank that cannot be hidden forever. Reluctantly Maca goes back to Belfast and picks up the threads of his old existence, just as unrest in the city is about to come to a head with violent consequences.
This much praised release is a wonderful insight into the time, told in an entertaining way
The book is available in Roe River Books in Dundalk as well as Carroll’s Hallmark in the Marshes Shopping Centre.
