A review of A Different Kingdom

A Different Kingdom is a lyrical fantasy novel that owes a huge debt to Irish myths and legends in the same way that much British fantasy does to the King Arthur mythology. Fairy folk, mysterious lands that touch the coasts of Ireland and their clash with Christian tradition are all familiar from Irish mythology and all combine in the tale of Michael Fay, a young boy growing up on a farm in Antrim in the 1950s who starts to see things in the woods around his home.

There's no sweeter fantasy than the idea that we could sidestep out of a dull life in our world and into a magical realm that will change us forever. That's the fantasy that Paul Kearney both adopts and subverts in A Different Kingdom, where nothing is quite what it seems and neither world provides easy choices for Michael. At the heart of it all is a strange, though oddly tender, relationship between Michael and his aunt, the closest in age to him and the only source of fun in an isolated life lived on the land.

This is an Irish tale both in the myths it echoes and in the modern portions, where Michael both loves and hates his destiny on the farm, a fate that can only be avoided by immersion in city life and even emigration. If the story falters at all, it's in a bit of over-sentimentality in the descriptions of the arrival of modern, industrial life to the farm. The loss of horses in favour of tractors is painted as a dichotomy between love of living and breathing creatures and a cold, dark machine - which is a bit more blinkered pastoral nostalgia then I was up for.

It's in the portions of the novel set in the different kingdom that the story excels, bringing a stark practicality to what the hardships of a quest in an unknown land would really be like while revelling in the joy of a boy that finds himself in a wild and untamed adventure. Although the novel has been around for a few years now, Kearney's publisher Solaris has a new edition out next month in the UK (with a great cover).