Review: The Star of Kilnaely

The Star of Kilnaely by Grace Daly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An unusual one, which is largely why I picked it up.

Set in the American Midwest, but in a town inhabited apparently exclusively by Irish people, so (having forgotten the blurb) I was confused for a long time about where we were. I remained confused about when we were, since the frame story and the last of the stories that it frames were apparently present day, but the majority of the stories seemed to be set in about the 1920s, based on the technology level and what was said to be new - and yet the characters, while they aged, were not over 100 years old.

There was also the occasional vocabulary glitch, which I'll mention to the publisher; I had a pre-publication version from Netgalley, and there may still be a chance to fix them. Otherwise, the copy editing was reasonably good, apart from "may" instead of "might" in past tense and at least one apostrophe in the wrong place.

The frame story shows us a small town spoiled by the advent of a rapacious software corporation, which is degrading the environment (especially the built environment), driving up land prices and displacing long-term inhabitants who can no longer afford to live there. The inner stories, told to a hapless salaryman from that corporation in a bar, are something in between Irish legendary tales and American tall tales of the Paul Bunyan variety, except instead of a blue ox the Star of Kilnaely has an enormous dog, big enough for even him to ride on. He's a larger-than-life character, charismatic, strong, handsome and blessed, in addition, with a brilliant younger sister, who (it soon becomes obvious to the reader, if not to the slightly inebriated listener in the bar) is the person telling the stories.

The hero tales are fun, and to my mind would have worked better without the frame, but they work well enough. Some have high stakes, others low stakes, but all of them show us the Star solving problems one way or another. Again, some draw on Irish mythology and show us the Good Neighbours and gods and goddesses, while others are more general small-town situations.

Pleasant and enjoyable, if a little confusing chronologically.

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