Redemption Falls

Redemption Falls is a strangely interesting and engaging book by Joseph O 'Connor. It took me a while to get into it, I have to admit. I found the language in the first chapter really hard to read, full of strange expressions and fancy words. I considered giving up, but I stuck to it and it proved immensely rewarding in the end.

The thing is that it's a story told in many voices and from many perspectives. So the language changed at every chapter - that must be something really hard to do as a writer - and it became easier.

The story is set somewhere in the Wild West shortly after the American Civil War, and follows the entangled lives of the acting Governor, an Irish patriot who escaped death in Ireland, his estranged wife, and a silent little boy who's seen too many horrors in the war.

Probably the most challenging book I've read in a long time, but well worth it.