In the vast landscape of Irish literature, Colin Barrett’s “Wild Houses” stands as a stark, brooding monolith. It’s a novel that seeps into your bones like the damp chill of a Mayo winter, leaving you unsettled and oddly exhilarated. Barrett, already acclaimed for his short story collections “Young Skins” and “Homesickness,” has crafted a debut novel that’s equal parts crime thriller, coming-of-age tale, and haunting meditation on isolation and belonging. Oh, and did I mention it’s been long-listed for the 2024 Booker Prize? Not too shabby for a first go at long-form fiction.
The Lay of the Land
Picture this: Ballina, County Mayo. A small town on the edge of nowhere, where everyone knows everyone else’s business, and old grudges simmer like perpetual stew. It’s the kind of place where you’re either planning your escape or resigned to your fate. Barrett paints this world with such vivid, unflinching detail that you can almost smell the chip shop grease and stale beer.
Our cast of characters is a motley crew of misfits and ne’er-do-wells. There’s Dev, a hulking, anxiety-ridden recluse living in his dead mother’s house. Cillian English, a small-time drug dealer with delusions of grandeur. His kid brother Doll, caught in the crossfire of Cillian’s poor decisions. And Nicky, Doll’s girlfriend, trying to navigate the murky waters of young love and small-town ennui.
Throw in the Ferdia brothers, Gabe and Sketch—a pair of thuggish enforcers with a twisted sense of justice—and you’ve got all the ingredients for a powder keg. When the Ferdias kidnap Doll as leverage against Cillian, the fuse is lit, and Barrett takes us on a wild, often brutal ride through a weekend that will change everything.
A Master of Voice
One of Barrett’s greatest strengths is his ear for dialogue. These characters don’t just talk; they spit and snarl and mutter, their words as sharp and jagged as broken bottles. Take this exchange between Cillian and his girlfriend Sara:
“You got them their money. Is that not it done?”
“It seems me fucking off is part of it getting done,” he said and began limping towards the house.
You can practically hear the weariness, the barely contained frustration. Barrett has a knack for capturing the particular cadence of Irish speech, the way words can be wielded as both weapon and shield.
But it’s not just the dialogue that sings. Barrett’s prose is a thing of brutal beauty, veering between lyrical description and gut-punch directness. He’ll spend a paragraph describing the “large, torn-up field enclosed by a chain-link fence” where an illicit meeting takes place, then hit you with a line like “Nicky’s heart started beating fast. There was a window, diminishing second by second, in which she might still contrive to persuade Flynn not to run the takings into town.”
It’s this constant tension between the poetic and the profane that gives “Wild Houses” its unique flavor. Barrett isn’t afraid to wallow in the muck of human existence, but he finds moments of unexpected grace there too.
A Gallery of Lost Souls
At its heart, Wild Houses by Colin Barrett is a character study. These aren’t your typical literary protagonists – there are no great heroes or villains here, just people trying to scrape by, often making terrible choices in the process.
Dev, our reluctant center of gravity, is a fascinating creation. Massive in size but crippled by anxiety and past trauma, he’s a gentle giant who finds himself caught up in events beyond his control. Barrett does a masterful job of putting us inside Dev’s head, showing us the world through his eyes:
“Dev’s sense was that Dr Jarleth was not very experienced. His manner veered between tentative and callously brisk, between stifling silences and feigned cheer. Often, he could not hide how bored he was.”
It’s these little details—the way Dev notices his therapist’s boredom—that make him feel achingly real.
Nicky, too, is a standout. A teenager on the cusp of adulthood, she’s caught between loyalty to Doll and the growing realization that there might be more to life than Ballina has to offer. Her journey through the novel is a subtle but powerful coming-of-age story, as she’s forced to confront harsh truths about the people she thought she knew.
The Ferdias brothers, Gabe and Sketch, could easily have been one-note thugs. Instead, Barrett imbues them with a twisted sense of honor and flashes of unexpected humanity. They’re still terrifying, mind you, but there’s a complexity to their brutality that makes them all the more unsettling.
A Town on the Edge
Ballina itself emerges as a character in its own right. Barrett captures the suffocating atmosphere of small-town life with unflinching precision. The annual Salmon Festival serves as a backdrop to the unfolding drama, a veneer of normalcy barely concealing the rot beneath.
There’s a palpable sense of economic desperation throughout the novel. Characters scrape by on dead-end jobs or turn to petty crime, all dreaming of something better but unsure how to achieve it. It’s a familiar story in rural Ireland, but Barrett avoids cliché by focusing on the specific, lived experiences of his characters.
The novel’s title, “Wild Houses,” takes on multiple meanings. There’s the literal wild house – Cillian and Sara’s drug-fueled party pad. But it also speaks to the wildness lurking within seemingly respectable homes, the secrets and violence barely contained by four walls and a roof.
Echoes and Influences
While “Wild Houses” is very much its own beast, it’s impossible not to see echoes of other Irish writers in Colin Barrett’s work. There’s a touch of Patrick McCabe’s small-town gothic in the novel’s darker moments. The economic desperation and gallows humor bring to mind Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy.
But perhaps the strongest influence is Kevin Barry, another master of the Irish short story who successfully made the leap to novels. Like Barry, Barrett has a gift for finding the poetry in the profane, for illuminating the lives of society’s outcasts and ne’er-do-wells.
That said, Barrett’s voice is uniquely his own. There’s a rawness to his writing, a willingness to stare unflinchingly into the abyss, that sets him apart. “Wild Houses” feels like the work of a writer who’s been honing his craft for years, distilling everything he’s learned into one potent brew.
The Verdict
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett is not an easy read. It’s violent, often bleak, and offers little in the way of neat resolutions. But it’s also utterly compelling, the kind of novel that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the final page.
Barrett’s greatest achievement is in making us care about these flawed, often unlikeable characters. By the end of the novel, you’re invested in their fates, even as you’re horrified by their actions. It’s a delicate balancing act, and Barrett pulls it off with aplomb.
The novel’s structure – unfolding over a single weekend – gives it a relentless forward momentum. There’s a cinematic quality to many of the scenes, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see “Wild Houses” optioned for film or television in the near future.
If I have one quibble, it’s that the novel’s denouement feels slightly rushed. After the tension of the preceding chapters, the resolution comes almost too quickly. But that’s a minor complaint in an otherwise stellar debut.
“Wild Houses” announces Colin Barrett as a major talent in Irish literature. It’s a novel that lingers in the mind long after you’ve turned the final page, leaving you with a bone-deep chill and a newfound appreciation for the complexities of small-town life. The Booker Prize long-listing is well-deserved, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make the shortlist.
In the end, “Wild Houses” is like a pint of Guinness—dark, complex, and distinctly Irish. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but for those who appreciate its particular flavors, it’s a deeply satisfying experience. Just don’t expect to walk away from it unscathed.