Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

Doubleday, 272 pages, $25.95

You’re on your own in terms of translation. There are some Irish terms explained for us tourists, but there are others left hanging there, pitiless modifiers or vague nouns we might never know but for Goggling a translation. Although the main action in “Night Boat to Tangier” takes place in a ferry terminal in Algerciras, Spain, this book is as Irish as they come.

By the way, this isn’t a mystery, the kind of mystery for which this blog exists. It is about a mystery of the heart, however. The two main protagonists (or are they actually antagonists) are criminals. Their main business over thirty or so years was drugs. Now they are old men, broken and fairly broke. And there they are in the ferry terminal in Algerciras, and they might be waiting for Godot.

Indeed, the book has a play’s overlay: the scene is set, the supporting characters are swept in stage left, and exeunt stage right. Mostly the other characters are in memories, whose stories are told both in narrative and dialogue.

“Godot” in this case is Dilys or Dill or Dilly. She is the twenty-three-year-old daughter of Maurice or Moss or Hearne. The other gentleman claiming a seat on the bench next to Maurice is Charlie or Redmond or Red. Maurice and Charlie have known each other forever, have been in trouble together forever, have known Dilys forever.

Dilys skipped town three years ago and has not let her demented papa know her whereabouts. But word has gotten out that she is on a night ferry to Tangier or from Tangier or has a dog or has dreadlocks. It is nebulous whether Dilys is still alive, let alone traveling on the night ferry.

While they wait, Charlie and Maurice (who “retain — just about — a rakish air”) reminisce about their lives, individually and together. They talk about how they know this terminal well. They also intimidate some passengers into coughing up “information” about Dilys. Life in the terminal is simple and existential.

Simple except, as they go along, the reminiscences become deeper, tragedies are revisited, and sins confessed. In the end, the play finally drifts off stage and Charlie and Maurice transform into the next level of their individual and combined stories.

“Night Boat to Tangier” is wonderful poetry and storyteller layering. It is a gem. But it is not a traditional mystery.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

“[Moss] wanted to leave the place again but was rooted to it now. Fucking Ireland. Its smiling fiends. Its speaking rocks. Its haunted fields. Its sea memory. Its wildness and strife. Its haunt of melancholy. The way that it closes in.”

“[Moss] started to see the sky as a kind of membrane. His head felt like it was the size of the planet. The sky was just a casing for his pulsing brain and it was too thin. He might explode like a star.”

“Night Boat to Tangier” is Irish writing in the best Irish way. I’d give it an MBTB star but, after all, it’s not a mystery.