This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

Donal Ryan is the master of words in my opinion and this book compounds my believe in this. He takes us on a trip to war torn Syria. Through the lives of Farouk, his wife and daughter we see how the horror of war effects them and shatters lives all around them. Running alongside is the story of Lampy an innocent young man living with his mother and grandfather. His soft nature and simple living is juxtaposed against the terror of what Farouk and family are going through.
This book is brilliant and should be read by everyone!

"Farouk’s country has been torn apart by war.

Lampy’s heart has been laid waste by Chloe.

John’s past torments him as he nears his end.

The refugee. The dreamer. The penitent. From war-torn Syria to small-town Ireland, three men, scarred by all they have loved and lost, are searching for some version of home. Each is drawn towards a powerful reckoning, one that will bring them together in the most unexpected of ways."

Though described as a novel, to me this felt like three separate stories of three different men, having only in common that each experiences loss and sadness. Their stories intertwine very briefly at the end, but for the most part they are three stand alone tales.
The first narrative is heartbreaking, painful , sad - no other way for me to describe it. It will give me pause every time I read about or see images of families escaping cruel treatment, injustices and regimes where they may be killed at any time. Farouk and his family are escaping Syria, hoping to find a place to seek asylum. This section was the most beautifully written and affecting of the three. In truth Farouk's story is the only one that affected me and I would have far preferred the book had it continued with Farouk's story of hardship and ultimate survival between the time he left Syria and made a home for himself in Ireland.
Lampy is a spoilt young Irish man trying to get over the girl he loves who left him, trying to reconcile, trying to accept that he doesn’t know who his father is. John is seeking forgiveness for the awful things he’s done in his life, has always grieved the loss of a brother who he could never live up to. These stories do contain a certain depth of their own, a sadness of their own, but truly it’s Farouk’s story that will stay with me. I felt no connection to either Lampy of John, and in fact while I was reading their stories I found myself wondering what had happened to Farouk and wishing the author would get back to his story.

Farouk's story is beautifully written, engaging, poignant and heart-wrenching, but for me personally without him the book would have been disappointing as I just couldn't engage with either John or Lampy. Farouk's was a profoundly moving story and I was left with a feeling of the book being incomplete as I felt it didn't explore his story enough.

Take three very different men in a small town in Ireland: Refugee Syrian Farouk, 23 year old heartbroken Lampy and elderly dying John. They are all struggling with their own lives and pasts. Their stories are beautifully written, so poignant at times. Donal Ryan has such an amazing way with words. And while the characters look like they have nothing in common, their lives are all invisibly threaded together, which becomes clear by the end of the novel. And my heart wrenched when it happened, the same way it happened when reading Ryan's previous novel All We Shall Know. One of my favourite books of the year so far!

Wondefully written and heartbreaking book. I loved how everything came together at the end. Highly recommended.

Another beautifully written and moving piece of work by the brilliant Donal Ryan.

Having read Ryan's previous three offerings, I was wondering how he would move on from stories about rural Ireland's dispossessed. Authors write what they know, so moving on to new subjects and into new territory can sometimes mean a sacrifice of the richness of their work. This is certainly not the case here, however.

When Ryan introduces the first protagonist of this new book, we know this is going to be a little different. Farouk is a Syrian refugee hoping to escape his homeland with his wife and daughter. The passages that describe Farouk's plight are absorbing and emotional, with a gentle pace and stunning prose. I found this to be the most moving section in the book.

As the novel is divided into four relatively short sections, we are soon introduced to our second protagonist: Lampy is a carer, still living at home with his mother and grandfather. He is recovering from a broken heart and his experiences are both moving and honest, and often hilarious. Describing an Irish character who feels 'stuck' is familiar terrain for Ryan, and Lampy is recognisable and engaging as a result.

Our third protagonist, John, is an accountant and lobbyist still obsessing over a failed love affair with a younger woman. He's a real money-man, and a dishonest schemer, but is vivid nonetheless. In fact, both Lampy and John are very well brought to life by Ryan, making them his most vivid characters to date. But it truly is Farouk who steals the show. He is the heart of this wonderful novel and when he exits after page 50, we miss him.

Thankfully, the last section of the novel brings our plot into focus and we uncover the connections between our characters, reintroducing us to Farouk. What emerges is a heartbreaking tapestry of stories that carries some jaw-dropping revelations. I loved how this story came together and think the result only further cements Ryan's talent as one of Ireland's most impressive and prolific writers. No one I have read thus far is as skilled at capturing the minds of young men stuck in small towns in rural Ireland; men who are longing to escape their fates and achieve greater things, only to be pulled back in by the lures of home and family and responsibility. He is also remarkable in his ability to write characters who are living with regret; those who are reliving the mistakes in their lives every day. Yet, Ryan does it with compassion but without judgement or sentimentality.

His work is a wonderful study of Ireland and its people and I absolutely adore it. Superb. Already a top contender in my Top of 2018 list.

Donal Ryan's latest book tells the stories of three very different men, whose lives are joined in only the slightest of ways, but who share the pain and scars of grief; Farouk, persuaded to leave his war-torn homeland, and risk all on a journey west; broken-hearted Lampy, who dreams big but achieves little; and unscrupulous accountant/lobbyist John, who, finding death drawing close, seeks forgiveness from a God he claims not to believe in. For all of them sorrow has crept up unawares, like the Normans sailing 'from a low and quiet sea' to engulf Ireland, and overwhelmed them.

The first three sections read as totally unrelated stories, but the last ties them together - not an unusual format, and you are half-expecting it to happen, but, the pulling together and tying off of separate threads is done with style and doesn't feel in any way contrived.
I've always found Donal Ryan to have an amazing way with words, allowing the reader for a short space of time, to walk in someone else's shoes, to experience their hopes and losses, and in this sympathetic, but not sentimental, study of grief he does it again. He frequently seems drawn towards fractured, broken people in his work (or maybe it's just that, as with Tolstoy's happy marriages, happy people are all the same and don't have much of a story to tell), and that's how most of the characters in this seem. The loss of home and family, the pain of heartbreak, regret for past actions and a need to confess - these don't seem cheery topics for a book, but the characters seem to be heading towards some level of resolution, a glimpse of hope and happiness, or maybe just acceptance, lying ahead until ... As with Ryan's first novel, The Thing About December, the bodyblow shock is kept till the end. Surprising, appalling. I found myself backtracking and changing my estimation of those involved - and Ryan's skill is shown in that, by now, these were 'people' not 'characters'.

Donal Ryan's writing just gets better and better. These three interconnected tales run from Syria to Ireland and showcase Ryan's skill at characterisation and beautiful, emotional prose. Unforgettable and possibly his best yet.

I'm a great fan of Donal Ryan's and love his use of language and particularly of the vernacular. The stories of the three men, their circumstances and their characters is extremely strong. Donal Ryan brings a certain type of Irish man and Irish town to life.His description of Farouk's experience as a refugee was heartbreaking. I was a little disappointed in the ending as it seemed a bit rushed and even contrived after the wealth of experiences that went before.

This was a heart breaking, and beautifully written book about a fact of our world that we can't close our eyes on.
There are three separate stories that link up together at the end of the book. All three of them are very engaging, and sad. The way he brought together all these stories was surprising and well done. The characters were very well built and they felt very real. I did feel for them throughout their journey.
In my opinion, Donal Ryan is a very talented author I'm glad to have read. I'm really looking forward to his next one eagerly.
It was a fabulous, moving book that I highly recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Such a beautifully written book. Donal’s descriptions and way with words are mesmerizing. Thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this book, it hooked me from the first till the last page. Thank You.

Donal Ryan is really back on form in his fourth novel. I was a little disappointed with his last one, All We Shall Know, as it seemed to lack the subtlety and understatement that his first two wonderful novels had. But this one, From a Low and Quiet Sea, is a deeply moving story of the kind of people Ryan seems to understand so well – the lost, the lonely, the often inarticulate, those with losses and regrets in their lives. It’s narrated in four discrete parts, which come together in a surprising yet convincing way in the fourth section. In the first Ryan strays away from Ireland to tell of Farouk, a Syrian refugee attempting to get to Europe for a better life – or indeed just the chance of life itself. The second is about Lampy, a young care worker, and the third an older and certainly less attractive figure. How their paths cross is difficult to foresee, but Ryan brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. A compelling and touching novel, beautifully written, cleverly paced and a joy to read.

In his latest novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, Donal Ryan has taken three very different characters – Farouk, whose country has been torn apart by war; Lampy, a broken-hearted boy from Ireland; and elderly John, whose past sins are haunting him – and created something special.

The novel is structured simply – a short, stand-alone story for each character and a fourth concluding story that brings the three characters together. The danger of drawing a number of disparate stories together is that the overall result can seem contrived. Somehow, Ryan has avoided this – nothing in From a Low and Quiet Sea feels forced or out-of-place. The connections between each story, once revealed, are surprising but also make perfect sense. And the best bit? I didn’t see any of it coming. Quite a feat.

Ryan’s writing is gentle, mesmerizing, absorbing. Each story has themes of belonging and loss (with each character dealing with these things quite differently). There are some colourful secondary characters; moments of genuine tension; and fantastic dialogue (I enjoyed the Irish colloquialisms).

A few particular elements of the story stood out. Ryan opens with an observation about how trees in a forest sustain a starving tree through underground networks of fungi and roots (I suspect that Ryan has recently read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a book that explores how trees communicate – coincidentally, I finished it a week before I started From a Low and Quiet Sea). It’s a fitting analogy for a book that goes on to examine the connections between people and how others support us in unexpected or hidden ways.

Of the three stories, my favourite was Farouk’s. As war breaks out in Farouk’s country (Syria), he decides to flee with his wife and daughter.

‘The war had come slowly, had accreted around them rather than exploded at their door. The police had turned to a militia. The town had filled with strangers armed with guns.’

Ryan’s descriptions of Farouk’s escape from Syria were frightening, and yet the fine detail in his writing shines. Of hearing gunshots at night, he says, ‘…and there were only the sounds of the cicadas, and her breaths, and in the far distance another series of crackling bursts, like dry leaves underfoot fragmenting to dust.’

Similarly, there’s a moment in John’s story where he is describing the impact of the death of his brother –

‘My father lost his first and best son and shortly after started buying land. As though to allow accommodation for the breadth and expanse of his sorrow.’

It’s a good example of Ryan’s ability to attach so much emotion to simple descriptions, and I think this is the most remarkable aspect of this novel. It’s a short book (approximately 190 pages) but don’t rush it.

4/5 Impressive.

I received my copy of From a Low and Quiet Sea from the publisher, Random House UK, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I’m delighted to be sharing my review of Donal Ryan latest novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, today as part of the blog tour. Donal Ryan is an author who is new to me, but this won't be the last of his novels that I read.
Can you imagine how that would be? If a tree is starving, its neighbours will send it food. No one really knows how this can be, but it is. Nutrients will travel in the tunnel made of fungus from the roots of a healthy tree to its starving neighbour, even one of a different species. Trees live, like you and me, long lives, and they know things. They know the rule, the only one that’s real and must be kept. What’s the rule? You know. I’ve told you lots of times before. Be kind.

From a Low and Quiet Sea is Donal Ryan’s most expansive book to date, partially set in Syria and partially in the familiar territory of rural Ireland.
Farouk’s country has been torn apart by war.
Lampy’s heart has been laid waste by Chloe.
John’s past torments him as he nears his end.
The refugee. The dreamer. The penitent. From war-torn Syria to small-town Ireland, three men, scarred by all they have loved and lost, are searching for some version of home. Each is drawn towards a powerful reckoning, one that will bring them together in the most unexpected of ways.

The idea of seemingly disparate characters who lives are connected or brought together in some way is not a new one, but I thought that it was particularly well done in From a Low and Quiet Sea. The three characters of Farouk, Lampy, and John are connected, and yet the how isn’t revealed until the very end of the novel, and I found the links between them to be quite unexpected. The structure of the novel works brilliantly in this respect, with each character telling their story in turn, before the final section which is told from the perspectives of various secondary characters that the reader meets along the way. This reveals the connections between the three men, but also gives more insight into the the minor characters as well as answering the outstanding questions to bring the novel to a satisfying close.

The three main characters are quite different, and I found their stories to be fascinating in different ways. Farouk’s tale, for me, had the biggest emotional impact, as he and his family leave their homeland behind in a bid to escape the horrors of war. Lampy’s story is one that is quite familiar, as he watches his former classmates graduating from university and beginning careers whilst he continues to work on a cash-in-hand basis and feeling as though his life is going nowhere, his frustration building. John’s story was quite different again, and is one that I found to be particularly intriguing. It is confessional in tone, as John looks back at his past, driven perhaps by a need to atone for his actions. I found it difficult to sympathise with John, but his story is an interesting one.

From a Low and Quiet Sea is a short novel, but I think that it’s one to savour as you get to know each of the characters and their lives, and I loved that Ryan was able to give each of his characters a distinct voice. Exploring themes of loss and grief throughout, this is a relatively short novel that packs an emotional punch, and it is one that will stay with me for some time to come.

From a Low and Quiet Sea was published on 22 March by Doubleday. Many thanks to Anne Cater for the review copy and the opportunity to take part in the blog tour.

Another Donal Ryan classic.
Three men, all completely different, all a different life stage but all connected to each other through one woman.
Beautiful.

“From a Low and Quiet Sea” is a collection of three narratives. The first is so compelling. Farouk is a refugee from Syria with haunting experiences. But the other two stories, of the heartbroken 20-something Lampy and older man John who is looking back over his life, didn’t live up to the first.

The book feels like three short stories, concluding together rather suddenly. I would have preferred a more intertwined tale. That said, the book is beautifully written and I would still recommend it.

"From a Low and Quiet Sea' has three seemingly disparate stories stitched together at the very end to form a triptych. Each one is so complete and well-rounded that they felt like complete short stories within the novel, and I enjoyed reading them. I think my favourite of all would be John's story simply because it was strong enough to arouse strong emotions. John is not particularly a likeable character, and his actions are deplorable but I also felt sympathetic towards him because of his childhood. On the other hand, Farouk's story was the weakest for me. I failed to connect with him on any level.

Ryan's writing is quiet and luminous but that somehow wasn't enough to sustain my interest throughout. There were times when it was purely the force of the lyrical writing that kept me going. Overall, a good read though.

Do you know these books that make you fall in love with an author's writing in a way that makes you want to read everything they have ever written? This was a book like that; it blew me away. I adore Donal Ryan's way with words and the obvious care he takes to construct perfect sentences.

This is more a collection of short stories but so much more than that in a way (and I say that as somebody who obviously loves short stories). Ryan tells the stories of three widely different men; the only thing they have in common is a deep unhappiness with their lives. All three of them are fully fleshed-out, flawed characters that were a joy to spend time with. This is even more impressive when considering how few pages Ryan uses for his portraits.

My favourite part of this book was the first: I adored everything about the way Ryan tells Farouk's story. Here the language is the most whimsical and powerful, whereas later it becomes more understated (which works brilliantly as well, I might add, I just happened to adore beyond measure the beauty of the first part). Farouk is also the most sympathetic of the men and the one whose story seems most tragic. I do love how Ryan allows this story to be as tragic as it needs to while still offering glimpses of hope.

Beyond being a perfect snapshot of these men's lives, this is also an ode to storytelling in its different incarnations. Be it the fairy tales Farouk and his wife tell their daughter or the stories of pub life in a small town that connects Lampy and his granddad, Donal Ryan shows how stories are the glue that keep us together. Which I obviously love.

First sentence: "Let me tell you something about trees."

Wow. There are so many personality facets on display that are wonderfully captured in Donal Ryan’s writing style. It deserves to be applauded. The mixed emotions of empathy, distaste and concern for the different characters, gives you a full-on emotional experience. There are three very different characters (Farouk, Lampy and John) each tainted by life’s obstacles amidst their hopes and plans. Farouk, is a refugee fleeing with his family from Syria, Lampy, is a young man struggling to come to terms with his dreams and place in society, and John, a man that has stooped to horrible depths of morality and viciousness, but hopes for redemption. Nothing is black and white as we also see the reasons why each man has made decisions and struggled with what fate had in store for him.

The insights into different family situations are very well captured and in a world where nothing is straightforward the narrative deals with a lot of psychological elements and how we can be both kind and hurtful, selfless and selfish. This is a real roller-coaster of a ride from depths of despair to humorous and witty dialogue, especially with Lampy’s grandfather. The Irish dialogue is precious. :)

So much more could be said here about each character as they are wonderfully portrayed, but I imagine and hope readers will take time to reflect on the characterisation and for reading clubs this will be a great book to discuss and dissect.

The rationale for the 3 storylines coming together at the end is tenuous, in terms of any plot or big event. It’s more to show the interaction between people and you never know the connection we have to each other. As the book draws to a close it reminds us that the varying experiences of life and interactions with others are all part of living, regardless of our individual stories.

My only criticism is that I found it difficult to follow the narrative at times, as there would be jumps in time either because of memories or switching to other periods to provide background. I had to re-read various section several times so you do need to pay attention and focus.