A fictional version of the fugitive Radovan Karadžić arrives in a credulous and gentle Irish village
In July 2008 the Butcher of Bosnia, Radovan Karadžić, was finally arrested for his crimes. He’d been hiding in plain sight in Vienna, working as a new age healer and sex therapist, disguised simply but effectively in beard and ponytail. In her latest novel, Edna O’Brien boldly transplants this haunting example of the banality of evil to her own country: a small seaside village in the west of Ireland.
When “Dr Vlad” arrives in Cloonoila, he sits by the river in the mist and listens to the sea and the screeching peacocks: had he read a few more novels and a little less Serbian nationalist poetry, he might even have recognised the place as an Edna O’Brien landscape. The year, however, is 2013, and O’Brien shows us how the Irish countryside has become conscious of its own loveliness, adding a sculpture to its river and a hotel to its castle, and even “old farm machinery” and a “replica of an Irish cottage” to the village. The villagers, though, remain, as O’Brien says, “innocent”, and she lets them speak to us directly in her characteristic, slippery mixture of poignancy, forthright wit and blatant, endearing self-deception. There is Father Damien the priest, Fifi the misty and lonely widow, Sister Bonaventure the ancient nun, and Dara and Mona who run the pub and hence everything else.
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