Decades later, his "confident strokes of thick black ink" mean he's having to face himself. "There's a lot to be said for this writing stuff down. The fog gets pushed away."
He writes in the hope it will somehow liberate him so he can return to Ireland and his now-adult, semi-functioning daughters. Or so he says: he's an unreliable narrator as well as an unreliable spouse. But erratically and awkwardly, he sets himself to try and help Maggie and Ursula.
His memories jolt with episodes of shocking, surreal violence. A monkey delicately plucks out a cat's eye; police break prisoners' bones with metal bars; a mother lashes a little girl shivering in the snow. The Africa where he now exists is full of Graham Greene-like figures, damaged, ruefully honest, still flickering with idealism. There's a big cast, nearly all of them with burdens to bear. "What strange men were about the earth ... once true, and their very trueness turned into betrayal."
Author and protagonist are joyously, exultantly drunk on words. A street is never wet; it's "flooded by a savage temper tantrum of summer rain". Jack's brother Tom doesn't play a cinema organ; he "worked the keys like a wizard, and seemed to be sitting astride the sun itself." You may wish for a little stylistic sobriety.
Longing for love and forgiveness to the very end, McNulty battles his way towards some degree of redemption - and a final half-page that will make you exclaim.
The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber $36.99).
