This Is The Way

This Is The Way
Gavin Corbett

WINNER OF THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2013SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE PRIZE 2013SHORTLISTED FOR THE BORD GAIS IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2013With the voice of Anthony Sonaghan – a modern-day Traveller born to a powerful, mythic inheritance – Gavin Corbett summons a world we thought we knew as we have not seen or heard it before:‘There I was now. In a room, a tidy room, tidier than any room I been in before. The bed was hard. The walls they gave no sound. A heavy window thumped itself shut. Good I says. Peace I says.’Anthony, the son of a Sonaghan father and a Gillaroo mother, is descended from two families whose enmity is a matter of legend. Though he belongs to a storytelling tradition, Anthony has grown up away from his people, and is only dimly aware of their disputes. That is until the blood feud touches him, and he comes to Dublin to lie low. His time in the city is a reckoning. Only there does he appreciate the strength of his heritage but also its otherness.In an unforgettable feat of imposture, Gavin Corbett has found a startling idiom - vivid and innocent - with which to speak for Anthony and that other, Travelling world.

GAVIN CORBETT

This is the Way

In memory of my father

In the common course of things, mankind progresses from the forest to the field, from the field to the town and to the social conditions of citizens; but this nation, holding agricultural labour in contempt, and little coveting the wealth of towns, as well as being exceedingly averse to civil institutions, lead the same life their fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new.

GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS,

Topographia Hibernica (c. 1188, trans. T. Wright)

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u51cb1d1d-ae8a-5305-8670-548930adbbe0)

Dedication (#u464ce0f5-9af4-5bcd-be6c-172e53ff377c)

Epigraph (#u995133a6-faa2-5178-8788-b3a1f44655b6)

Part I (#u962519d0-ce15-5926-95bf-f7557d98abb7)

Chapter 1 (#ue6c2a6b3-5fdd-5f79-a991-4ddcc4a2d638)

Chapter 2 (#ub6a9367a-6e9d-5642-9ad1-629f1a575aff)

Chapter 3 (#udee1f998-d4c2-5552-b349-5d371b055ed6)

Chapter 4 (#u1184701e-7de0-5d33-92b1-af7eebe19082)

Chapter 5 (#u8c52428f-17ad-5c4a-a59a-6e285465d6a6)

Chapter 6 (#u3ca983e1-2014-538c-9029-8e6eb0464dac)

Chapter 7 (#ube6a7565-064a-5169-8df3-bf6dae30b651)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part II (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

There I was now. In a room, a tidy room, tidier than any room I been in before. The bed was hard. The walls they gave no sound. A heavy window thumped itself shut. Good I says. Peace I says. First time I been in a hotel room though I was in an apartment once in the Canary. That smelt of bleach, this smelt of paint. I took in the room, I enjoyed it I did. I felt settled after what had been. I thought of the very nice girl in the hall at the desk. I thought of her the whole time I been in the room. I might ask her I says. I went in the toilet I seen they had not built the sink well but I came out in the room again I says I like this. I could live in this room I says.

When I got the call from my cousin Jimmy I went down to meet him in the hall. My cousin Jimmy was thirteen year older than me and he was my mother’s eldest brother Thom’s eldest boy. He was a bald man with gold teeth and tattoos on his hands and neck. We sat in chairs around a glass table.

He says are you liking the room.

I says it’s grand. It’s better than grand I says.

The business is appreciated he says.

No problem I says.

You know you’re the only guest he says.

That true I says.

Did you see the picture of Raekwon in the bathroom he says.

No I did not I says.

You’re in the Raekwon room he says. Every room’s named after a rap star.

That so I says.

It is he says. But listen.

What I says.

Sorry he says.

What you saying sorry for I says.

He turned to look at the girl at the desk. The girl was watching television.