DAYS WITHOUT END by SEBASTIAN BARRY (2016)

Irish writer Sebastian Barry's prose reads like poetry. It sings; it has cadence, rhythm; it is often so beautiful that it breaks your heart. It reminds me of the poetry of his fellow countryman, William Butler Yeats, and that is high praise indeed. Even a visceral account of a battle between the Army and a Sioux village reads like poetry, powerful in its brutal beauty. Consider this passage:

"Fire, fire, men, calls our sergeant, and we reload like lunatics and fire. Powder, ball, ram, cap, cock, and fire. Powder, ball, ram, cap, cock, and fire. Over and over, and over and over Death at his frantic task in the village, gathering souls. We work in our lather of strange sorrow, but utterly revengeful, fiercely so, soldiers of intentful termination, of total annihilation. Nothing else will slake our thirst. Nothing else will fill our hunger."

Narrating the story is the Irishman Thomas McNulty, who as a young teenager stows away on a ship to America to escape the famine in Ireland. Together with his chance-met companion John Cole, he finds work in a rough mining town, dressing as a woman and dancing with the men in the saloon. Soon, as the two age, they can no longer be convincingly female, so they sign up with the U.S. Army to fight Indians. When the Civil War breaks out they fight for the Union in an all-Irish regiment, even directly confronting another all-Irish regiment from the Confederacy. After the war's end, Thomas and John Cole still have obstacles to overcome and battles to fight before they can enjoy the peace they had sought in America.

This is a story about genocide. It is a story of war and its terrors, and about the blood-lust of battle that can overwhelm even the best of men. It is a story of America in the making. But most of all it is a story about love--the love of Thomas and John Cole for their adopted Sioux daughter and the love, both spiritual and physical, of the two for each other.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It tells a fascinating story in language that is lyrical and addictive. What more could you want?

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I would also highly recommend Barry's A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture. Barry is my favorite living writer.