Nightlines

Neil Jordan's novel, Nightlines, flogs the father son relationship to within an inch of its life. Donal returns home from the Spanish Civil War, where he had supported the Republican cause, released from jail by a German officer who expects intelligence in return. This is troublesome as is his father's frail health and Donal's sexual relationship with his father's wife. When Donal was in jail memories of night fishing with his father kept him going and he longs for those times when they were close but his father has had a stroke and his fishing days are over. It's a short novel but there are myriad betrayals and a ghostly denouement that shouldn't work but does.