Reviews for Down by the river

The average rating for Down by the river based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-24 00:00:00 Mike Bruns This is based on a true story and as I read it I found myself recalling the media coverage of the case. Edna O'Brien has a very individual style of writing. She doesn't so much tell as imply. Though her prose is quite poetic, it is can also be hard to follow. There were many of these short chapters that I had to re-read to make sure I had got the point. Sometimes I couldn't work out what the point was. Though I think I just about got the story, it sort of fluttered at the edge of my vision like a dream straight after you wake up. An acquired taste in literature I think!

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-04 00:00:00 Thomas Wojtczuk 3.5 Edited to add, today [March, 2017] the results of the professional dig were announced: scores of babies up to age 2 &3 buried in a septic system at the convent that had housed unwed mothers in prior decades. Just shattering. Even a lapsed Catholic would go say a prayer and light a candle. Blasting the Church doesn't bring the babies back. This story, Down By The River, grew heavy with brutality, explicit and implied. Even the judiciary were incestuous. The problem with a novel so laden with social messaging is that those who should see the message wouldn't venture outside his/her comfort zone to read O'Brien. ---Now there's a novel. What happens when the scales fall from eyes, when the bubble would at last pop, for someone like the pro-life-crazed Roisin? Nervous breakdown? To consider a different point of view? Read this in conjunction with O Brien's Wild Decembers Wild Decembers. A good duo in that the second novel also covers some of the same dark regions in the mental world of rural Ireland.