The Nightside of the Country

It is the Time of the Felled Men. M, a writer, finds her own past triggered by the constant revelations of misogyny and violence. The novel she is writing stalls. She involves herself in #MeToo and this has consequences—including the threat of litigation. She retreats to a guesthouse on a holy island (a fictional Iona) and there she encounters B—a woman who may or may not be a figment of her imagination—a woman who may or may not be Irish. This encounter takes M's novel in a different direction. B is reckoning with her violent political past in an organisation known as the Movement. B also suffers the consequences of stepping forward in this period. She has been on the run since speaking out against gender violence. All the way through, the threat looms large: A man may come here. We both know this much. The novel plays with modes of storytelling to address the central questions: How do we deal with trauma and gender violence? How do we give voice to that...