Start with a torpedo, and see where you go from there

Sebastian Barry’s new novel opens with a bang, as a German torpedo hits a supply ship bound for the Gold Coast. We experience everything through the senses of ‘temporary gentleman’ Jack McNulty — an Irish officer in the British army with a short-term commission. Brimful of whiskey, his racing winnings jingling cheerily in his pocket, McNulty stands on deck ‘somewhat in love with an unknown coastline’, and the reader is, instantly, somewhat in love, and completely bound up with, this red-haired chancer.

In the seconds that follow the torpedo, McNulty, almost a medieval Everyman, experiences a vision of heaven and hell and all stages between. One moment ‘a winged man suspended’, the next plummeting, ‘a hundred demons yanking on my legs’, he sends his

last signal of love…to Mai and my children, up the night-filthied coast of Africa, across the Canaries, across the old boot of England and the ancient baby-shape of Ireland…I love thee, Mai, I am sorry, I am sorry.