Product Description
While a floundering Irish government clings to its illusion of power and an international troika waits in the wings, Martin - a mid-ranking civil servant - finds himself alone in a Beijing hotel: a superfluous accessory in a delegation accompanying a Minister to China.
Set at a time when illusions of great wealth are being stripped away from Martin's neighbours, forced to confront the actuality of being soddled with insurmountable debt, "The Fall of Ireland" is a subtle meditation on the thin line between illusion and actuality: a study of a homesick man in the gilded cage of a luxury hotel, forced to take stock of his life and uravel which elements are real and which are subconscious deceptions.
In a cat-and-mouse encounter with a Chinese masseuse, Martin is drawn into a world of sexual politics beyond his experience, where he struggles to bridge the gap between the chameleon face of someone at work and the reality when everything is stripped bare, with nowhere left to hide from the anxieties, longings and contradictions in his head.
At once an intimate human study and a subtle portrait of a country in flux, Dermot Bolger's superb new novella explores what changes in the human codition and what remains inalterably enduring.
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