Book description
Hauntingly told and emotionally charged, this is an immense story of
consuming addiction and the betrayal of trust.
'I knew that the black dot of pain that lay in the centre of his eyes
also lay in mine, and that it was a stain that no amount of washing or
praying could shift. I think of my loneliness, how it coils around the
centre of my being like a long thread of steel and realise that my
father must have been the same, he stood on the outside of our family
condemned as an ogre, just as I do now.'
Gabriel O'Rourke seemingly has everything: a loving wife, an adoring
young son, a worthwhile job. He is rooted in a community, is part of a
family, has a home. Yet, gradually, his world slowly pulls apart, until
Gabriel finds himself homeless and destitute, living out of rubbish
skips on the street. In a psychotic haze he is admitted into a secure
unit, his body addled by alcohol, his mind broken. Here, by confronting
the blighting reality of his own alcoholism, Gabriel is forced finally
to unearth the muddled spectre of the past: the black betrayals by those
around him, his traumatic relationship with his father, and the true
darkness of some obsessions.
Learning to navigate a landscape pockmarked with trauma to undergo a
journey of painstaking absolution and halting reconstruction, Gabriel
understands that only by untangling the mistakes of the past can he hope
to reclaim his future. Reviews for Torn Water:
'Lynch brings alive the grimy realities of a land and family in the
grip of the Troubles, while also conjuring the lilting dreamscapes of a
young boy's mind.' Observer
'A tale of great delicacy and originality, in which the fierce
intensity of adolescence and, even more, the paranoia and yearning of
childhood are evoked with precision, grace and overwhelming conviction.'
Independent on Sunday
'“Torn Water” has the tight tone and feel of the period it depicts and
captures well the uncertainties of someone leaving the capsule of
childhood behind and taking their first footsteps out into the vast
unknown where there are no certainties and no ghosts or angels to guide
you.' Irish Sunday Independent
'As a moral lesson for modern Ireland it is conventional but
appealing.' Irish Times
'You get the beat of a writer's heart all the way through the book.'
Jennifer Johnston John Lynch is a successful film, television and
stage actor. Torn Water is his first novel. He lives in France.
