Set in the west of Ireland in 1962, Niall Williams’ book Time of the Child welcomes us to the fictional town of Faha, and introduces us to a delightful array of characters that I feel I must be related to in some way or another - they are so familiar. The novel plays the melody of a world in harmony, but there is a discordant strain that undeniably runs counter to the lyrical melody of the prose. After all, there is a mother somewhere who has abandoned her infant child in the church grounds, and a doctor who is haunted by knowledge of the notorious Magdalene Laundries. There are serious issues happening just off stage and out of sight of the reader, but on these Williams does not overly dwell. It is a text written in a minor key and Time of the Child could easily dip into a dirge at any moment, but Williams masterfully returns to the solfa note that we are promised in the book’s opening bars. The story begins on the first Sunday of Advent and pulsates with the generous spirit of love that permeates many a book set at Christmas time. The kindness and friendship of the people of Faha restores our faith in human nature in the depths of winter as much as Joe in Great Expectations, or Peggotty in David Copperfield. As with Dickens before him, we believe in the world that Williams creates from the thin air of his imagination owing mostly to the solidity of his characters. Dr Troy and Ronnie, Ganga and Annie Mooney, Jude and Pat Quinlan - all are people who lived and breathed air, surely?
And that is how he gets you - Niall Williams that is - with his ordinary, everyday characters perfectly matched with his metaphorical prose, twisting meaning and bending his sentences in such a way, that the place we start out at, is not at all the place we end up. The world of the text may at first risk being pigeonholed as bleak and inward-looking, mean and judgemental - this is the Ireland of John B. Keane, Brian Friel, and Edna O’Brien after all - but before you know where you are, a story is told and somewhere betweeen the warp and weft of it, you see that it is you who is mistaken, and that the world of Faha is, in fact, golden.
Time of the Child is a perfect story for December - an Irish alternative to the Christmas story; a hopeful tale of regret and second chances, of endings and beginnings, of acts of insanity and acts of love. It is like taking a step back in time, but not a brutal one like that which catapults Scrooge to his schooldays, but a gentle stroll to the early 1960s in Ireland. Nostalgic and humorous, thoughtful and endlessly entertaining, Williams’ book has the feel of an old black and white film, one with Crosby and Hope perhaps, or the one with Jimmy Stewart running down main street laughing like a lunatic. This is a book for any time of the year - but especially in the darkest days of winter. Gift it to yourself - you’ll be the better for it.
