David Park (2) (1953–)

There is a lot that is bleak in Stone Kingdoms. Naomi, raised in a vicarage overlooking the sea by her parents, she says, 'There should be some magic in growing up by the sea, but I never feel my life touched by it.' And yet the healing qualities of the sea return to her again and again. We first meet Naomi as an adult in a hospital bed, badly burnt and her eyes wrapped in bandages. The novel then takes us back to her childhood and the life choices that led to that time. From the coast of Donegal she moves to Belfast during The Troubles and takes a pupil under her wing who other teachers have written off. The young man disappoints her and she volunteers to work for a relief agency in an un-named African country where there is civil war and famine. The things she sees here are brutal and the novel does become bleak but there are pinpricks of love and goodness until the end. Naomi constantly reflects back on the young pupil, her father and an incident she experienced as a child with her mother. Her mother intervened when they encountered a group of men who were harrassing someone. These are the incidents that are important to Naomi and David Park bring the reader back to them again and again. The theme of civil war crops up again and again too. Well constructed and written, even if occasionally clumsy, this was a good but distressing read.… (plus d'informations)

From the first few pages I was lost in this novel, travelling in a strange land with Tom. He is driving from Belfast in Northern Ireland to Sunderland via the ferry to Scotland just before Christmas to collect his son Luke from the student house. Luke isn't well but it is just a cold and Tom and his partner Lorna, who stays home with their daughter, seem more worried than necessary. The reader knows there is a reason for this. Tom is confined to his car, outside the land is hidden under many feet of snow. On this solitary and claustrophobic journey he looks back, thinking about where he went wrong bringing up his other son Daniel. Tom is a photographer, mainly weddings, and his mind is tuned into different ways of seeing the same thing and the stories behind an image. David Park gives glimpses of the world outside the car, a kestrel, a man on skis, a jack-knifed lorry and of life inside the car, the music he listens to, the voice of the satnav and his telephone calls with home. The short novel gives a sense of the length of the journey. It is beautifully written, very moving and has a tension running through it.… (plus d'informations)

Childhood memory plays a huge role in David Park's 1994 novel, The Rye Man. In search of career renewal and a fresh start to their marriage after a devastating loss (a miscarriage), John and Emma Cameron have moved to Northern Ireland, into an old house situated close to where John grew up. John has taken the position of headmaster at the primary school that he attended when he was a child, assuming the role with a head full of notions for improvement and modernization. The house where the couple hope to rebuild their life together is a vintage structure, an old rectory house that is showing its age. Emma though, has plans of her own: to make the place welcoming, paint over tired surfaces, fill the empty spaces with light, and use one of the outbuildings on the property as a painting studio. In addition, a further structure bears significance to the story: a sprawling Victorian house that’s been converted into a hospital that, for reasons which remain obscure for much of the novel, we see John visiting in the novel's opening section. John himself is haunted by the past and suffers nightmares as the result of a traumatic incident. Years earlier, while still very young, he became something of a local hero. For amusement he used to spy on a widow named Maguire whose farm was close by his own, and one day, curious about what she was keeping in her barn, crept on to her property. Here he made a discovery that he will never forget, one that ultimately involved the police. John is smart and more of a pragmatist than an idealist. He knows that some of the teachers will resist the changes he wants to make at the school. However, attitudes are more entrenched than he'd anticipated and when he finds himself at odds with many of those he'd hoped to entice into his camp, it seems more and more like he's treading water instead of making progress. At home things are no better. Emma has been depressed over the loss of the baby, and they had both thought she was improving. But the house is filled with a powerful sewer stench, and even the professionals they hire are unable to find the source. Emma's work on the house has stalled and she seems to have abandoned her painting. What's more, John and Emma find themselves in conflict over the all-consuming nature of his job, the time he spends on school-related matters and his apparent willingness to concern himself with some children on a more personal level. Of great interest to him is a girl named Jacqueline McQuarrie, who lags far behind the other children but whose parents refuse to even consider enrolling her in a special school that would be better suited to her particular needs. It is here that John’s professional cool abandons him, and he makes a decision that lands him in hot water and, in the end, has dire consequences. David Park’s novel is multi-layered, but childhood innocence emerges as an over-arching theme—our efforts to preserve and protect it, and what can happen when this innocence is violated. The Rye Man (the title is a nod to JD Salinger) is a beautifully written, moving and haunting novel. And if the action sequence that builds toward the devastating denouement seems somewhat overwrought, it is only because Park’s likeable hero, John Cameron, is so desperate to do the right thing.… (plus d'informations)

It doesn't matter who you are, becoming a parent is like travelling in a strange land. Tom and Lorna worry about their son Luke, a student at university in England. Luke has been stranded by a snowstorm cancelling travel plans, the only person left in his student digs at Christmas. Tom sets out to bring him home to Northern Ireland for the holidays. This novel records Tom's journey as he reflects on another son, Daniel and where he went wrong. Interrupting his thoughts the satnav voice regularly advises him to stay on the route. At one point he turns off the satnav in case the woman can hear his thoughts.

Park's intriguing, quiet story is beautifully written, where each apparently trivial thought and event has significance.… (plus d'informations)