54 LISTENER NOVEMBER 5 2016
BOOKS&CULTURE
by SALLY BLUNDELLA
boy, a thing, a cratur: a brittle
bundle of bones that can neither
walk nor talk but screams and
moans “like the Devil was inside
him, fighting for purchase”.
A cripple, say some, a poor cretin. The
villagers are not so sure. Young Micheál
Kelliher, they whisper, is a changeling, left
in the place of a healthy boy stolen from
his family and now lying trapped under
the hill with “the good people” of the
title. “’Twas fairy,” croaks the boy’s grand-
mother, the widow Nóra Leahy. How else
to explain the strange lights under the
whitethorn tree, the chickens off the lay,
the cows drying up, the sudden death of
Nóra’s husband, her beloved Martin?
Australian writer Hannah Kent won
accolades and numerous awards for her
first book, Burial Rites, a tightly woven
story about a woman awaiting execution
on an isolated farmstead in Iceland. The
opening lines of that book set the tension:
“They said I must die. They said that I
stole the breath from the men, and now
they must steal mine.” Similarly with The
Good People, death makes an early appear-
ance: “Nóra’s first thought when they
brought her the body was that it could
not be her husband’s ... the body was
nothing but a cruel imitation.”
Where Kent based her first story on the
true account of Iceland’s last public execu-
tion in 1829, here she weaves her story
around her chance discovery of an 1826
court case in which a woman “of very
advanced age” was tried for attempting to“put the fairy” out of a young boy. And
where Burial Rites unfolded in the brittle
beauty of the Icelandic winter, here we are
in the damp, dark chill of turf smoke and
stamping cattle, the fear and superstition
of early 19th-century rural Ireland.
Here, fear of the euphemistically named
Good People is pervasive. They can
“sweep” or “blink” ordinary people, leav-
ing them changed, unhinged. If crossed,they can cause crops to fail, babies to die,
women to be infertile. For many, recourse
lies only in “the cure”, an ancient recipe
of herbs, plants and rituals administered
by the bean feasa, the “wise-woman” of
Irish Gaelic tradition. Here it is old Nance,
grey-haired, weak-gummed, alone but for
Mora the goat. Her presence is endured- she delivers babies, sets broken bones,
cures rashes, keens at funerals – but she is
also regarded with growing suspicion by
the villagers, impatient fury by the new
young minister.
In desperation, Nóra, with the reluc-
tant support of her young maidservant,
Mary, seeks help from Nance to return her
beloved grandson.
Kent tells a vivid and enthralling
story of hope and blame, whispered fear
and frantic faith in the face of hunger,
violence, death, the “bridle and bit of the
world”. Her research is clearly extensive,
the depictions of the enclosed world
of the village fascinating in their brutal
conviction and primitive power: an early
spring day “snapped with cold”; robins
“blood-smocked
against the sky”;
Nóra, crouching over
the boy, frenetic in
her anxiety, watching
him “like a cat staring
at a dying bird”. l
THE GOOD PEOPLE, by
Hannah Kent (Picador,
$37.99)The devil
inside
Superstition and the
dark chill of rural
19th-century Ireland
are woven through
this compelling tale.
Kent tells a vivid and
enthralling story of hope
and blame, whispered
fear and frantic faith in
the face of hunger.
Hannah Kent: fascinating depictions.