The River Capture

Luke O'Brien has left Dublin to live a quiet life on his family land on the bend of the River Sullane. Alone in his big house, he longs for a return to his family's heyday and turns to books for solace.
When Ruth enters Luke's life he is besotted. However, her introduction to his family does not go as he hoped.
A family man, carrying many crosses upon his shoulders, Luke is torn.
This is a book unlike any I have read before, Luke is completely obsessed with James Joyce and it is almost like an homage to him. It is at times lyrical, at times raw, and at times completely savage in it's prose.
We witness Luke at his most vulnerable, fragile and utterly mad with emotion.
I found it hard to find the words to describe Mary Costelloe's writing, it's truly something else.

The River Capture, Mary Costello's second novel is extremely ambitious. Full of ideas, it goes far beyond its ostensible story-line, using intellectual frameworks, authors and fictional characters, particularly Leopold Bloom, as tools to investigate what it is to be human, while simultaneously keeping a narrative in place and playing games that will reward the well-read but not inconvenience those who have no interest in such enhancements.

Luke O'Brien is a 34-year-old teacher in Belvedere, a privileged Dublin Jesuit school, which James Joyce attended in his day, and Luke is, coincidentally, a Joyce obsessive. He has returned to the family farm on the Sullane River on a career break. The novel opens like a McGahern work, with Luke's ruminations on the nature of cattle and a visit by the neighbouring farmer who rents the grazing and who is kicking off a strategy to increase his longer-terms rights to the grazing.

But then the novel takes a turn into Luke's very intelligent and well-stocked mind, where much of it will take place as he considers Joyce and Coetzee, quantum theory, Schrodinger's cats and a host of other roads into exploring the nature of duality, of which he is very much an example.

Slowly and calmly, the reader is led to "placed" Luke as a laid-back teacher, unlucky in love, who finds it hard to take decisions but will soon be forced for financial reasons to decide whether to return to teaching, or actually farm his land himself. Then the plot re-emerges with a jolt, revealing a discovery Luke had made about a fundamental aspect of his identity and rather than dismiss this duality Luke has proudly embraced it.

There are a number of very well-drawn female supporting characters: Lily the cat, his aunt Ellen (returned to a house nearby after a working life in the US working for a privileged family), his remembered and adored aunt Josie, who was not all there, and Ruth Mulvey, the love interest. Tellingly, given the Coetzee/Elizabeth Costello animal-cruelty angle, Ruth arrives to ask if he will adopt a dog, which he does. The relationship develops in a very honest and considered way, rather than passion taking over. But then a melodramatic plot trap is sprung that would make John B Keane or early-Martin McDonagh proud.

Having hauled the reader back into very specific situations populated by very real people, Costello then lets the book glide into its most abstract phase. Looking back on the whole book, this section is totally justified but it takes a bit of faith to persevere for some passages as a distraught Luke sinks into himself and alcohol.

The significance of the title, The River Capture, is revealed as referring to one river capturing the drainage system of another and the two rivers uniting, though Luke is troubled by which river has captured which as he ponders "his" Sullane river and how it enters the sea, "the fresh floating on top, no mixing or melding, no fusion of molecules."

As the novel reaches its final torrents, it looks as if the several identities of Luke will never be reconciled, either. But, having endured a moving ending, there is another approach and, like a river capture, Luke's streams are reconciled.

This is a very stimulating book, in a league of its own..

Luke leaves behind a Dublin teaching post and a failed relationship, takes a sabbatical and returns to his family farm close to the River Sullane.
His solitary life now contrasts with the energy of a childhood surrounded by extended family and he dwells on his dead and distant relations, all departed except one maiden aunt who lives nearby.
His attempts to write about Joyce and his works, an obsession, have proved futile and his income need to be maintained. Just then Ruth enters Luke’s life but as their relationship intensifies, unexpected difficulties surface too.
A River Capture is a glorious and engaging read. A river capture it appears, is when two rivers meet, one can sometimes be diverted to flow into the other riverbed, much as Luke feels the direction of his life is influenced by events outside his control. Joyce and his characters are at the core of this book, as Luke compares himself to them as if they are real- and they do feel thoroughly real to him. This is a novel about love, whether familial loyalty ranks higher than romantic love and concluding on an uncertain and disquieting note.
With thanks to Netgalley and Canongate for the opportunity to read it

A glorious and engaging read
A well written book which was a pleasure to read
This was the first novel that I have read by this author but won’t be the last

Mary Costello pays homage to James Joyce and, at the same time, manages to be completely original. Luke, a teacher on a sabbatical that might just last forever,, is obsessed with Joyce (and most especially Bloom), and also devours articles about science and the workings of the universe. He lives alone having cared for his aunt until her death, with various cats for company, his thoughts often returning to the lost members of his family, and the life they lived in this house. Life changes when he meets Ruth, a young woman who he feels an immediate connection with. There are unexpected consequences of his meeting with Ruth, that pull Luke in different directions, and we follow the innermost workings of his minds as he grapples with the meaning of his own life. A complex and surprising novel.

An intimate odyssey into a mind in crisis – and the redemptive power of art and nature.

A broken relationship leads Luke to take a hiatus from his Dublin-based teaching career. He retreats to the empty rural family home where his thoughts turn to his past. His memories are peopled as much by characters from his beloved Ulysses as by his relatives. The present ruptures his isolation, but the chance of happiness is threatened by familial loyalty.

Costello’s writing is assured, lyrical and flowing. It navigates the reader like the river that is ‘something alive and benevolent’. The author's eye for the beauty and savagery of nature is sublime.

The River Capture lays bare the inner workings of a mind unravelling, and transitions seamlessly from stream of consciousness to interrogation. The mundane is rendered profound.

This homage to James Joyce has me determined to revisit Ulysses (and I might even complete it this time).

Hauntingly beautiful.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Canongate for the ARC, and for introducing me to this author.