Rich, multi-layered descriptions of the natural world characterize this debut poetry collection by Eoghan Walls. Drawing inspiration from his native Ireland, the poems feature haunting imagery and complex forms, exploring the human condition with a sardonic yet tender perspective. Walls presents an ambivalent and often ironic view of a culture historically rooted in religion, making the collection both evocative and thought-provoking.
Fourteen-year-old Orla's mum is dead. She lives in England with her unemployed father and baby sister Lily, but she's planning to run away to live in Northern Ireland, where her mother is buried. Preoccupied with trouble at home and at school, she accidentally crashes her bike into a man who calls himself Jesus and says he is the Son of God. He has never seen a smartphone. He can raise animals from the dead by blowing into their mouths, including Orla's cat Sneaky. Orla convinces Jesus to come with her to Ireland to bring her mum back to life and she teaches him how to ride a bike to get there. But Jesus has plans of his own, and after one of his revivals goes horribly wrong, Orla must decide how far she is willing to go to save her mother. A hilarious coming-of-age story, road novel, and meditation on the mysteries of faith and grief, this debut novel heralds an important new voice in world literature.
Eoghan Walls' Pigeon Songs is a gorgeous second collection of poems: richly detailed, densely metaphorical, steeped in themes of love and loss. The pigeon as a totem animal rings true, suggesting both a down-to-earth physicality along with an ability to astonish, to take flight. Formally adept, vividly evocative, Pigeon Songs rewards re-reading.