Review
his debut novel is a master class in sustaining tension, says Catherine McGrotty.
- Luggage
- Lagan Press
Luggage
Weighing in at just over 100 pages, this first novel from the Belfast-based short story writer shows that he hasn’t lost his aptitude for economy with words. Despite its slim size, this is a novel that packs a real punch.
Hollywood’s prose is adept at creating atmosphere - from the muggy heat of a French summer to the air of menace simmering just below the surface of the novel. The ‘Luggage’ of the title refers to more than the physical burden of this family holiday. A chance encounter with a known killer on the ferry out casts a pall over Thomas’s family holiday and even in France he struggles to shake off the burden of Northern Ireland’s dark past. Hollywood’s language is laden with images and symbols that keep the reader simmering under with unease throughout the story. It’s a master class in barely concealed tension and to his credit that he manages to keep you firmly tied up with Thomas’s emotions throughout the book. This is not a thriller in the conventional sense of the word; Hollywood’s French literary influences are present in the preoccupation with ideas and emotion over action. It is perhaps a blessing that the novel is so short - any longer and the tightly-wound tension might have slackened or snapped. As it is, you come away from Luggage uneasily aware that the ‘monsters’ of most fiction are really far less crippling than the real ‘baggage’ that our history of violence has burdened us with.
Watch out for our interview with Peter Hollywood in next month’s Verbal.
Catherine McGrotty