‘Child’s Time’ by ‘This is Happiness’ author Niall Williams is a beautiful novel set at Christmas time

To use a word frequently used in the novel, “The Child’s Time” is a miracle.

Niall Williams’s brilliant, wry and humane book is set in the fictional Irish hamlet of Faha, where much of his work (including “Four Love Letters” and “Four Love Letters”) is set.This Happiness”) takes place.

The year is 1962 and Christmas is approaching, which is important because the events that are foreshadowed in the book for 100 pages and then seem to happen suddenly are reminiscent of the life of the person for whom Christmas is named. A baby is found outside, dies, then comes back to life. And the question of who will accept the child hovers throughout the rest of the book.

“Child Time” may contain the best sentences among this year’s novels. Williams has a remarkable ability to describe the shabby Faha; “the entire interior lacks a straight line, each wall only meets the ceiling imperative” as in this little gem that characterizes a hostel.

He’s equally good at character details that call people to life; such as the three sisters whose worldview was shaped as soon as they met their first bottle of milk: “Who would Sophie, Charlotte, be if she almost fell asleep while being fed? do not take the bottle and Ronnie tried to reach out and grab the bottle himself. Even the peculiar use of commas in this sentence seems designed to tell us how different these three sisters are from each other.

The person the book is most interested in is Ronnie. When the baby girl was found, Ronnie and her father, Dr. Jack is brought to Troy. Jack realizes how important the child is to Ronnie, and instead of placing him in the care of the state, they try to keep his secret. This is partly because Jack blames himself for thwarting Ronnie’s romantic hopes, but also because both Jack and Ronnie mourn the loss of his wife/mother, who was taken from them at a young age and which Ronnie reiterates in his interactions with the baby: “Ronnie is both the one holding the baby and He floated into a double peace where he was the one being held.

It’s an essentially realistic book, lovingly observing the details of its characters’ daily lives, but there’s also an element of quiet magic. For one thing, the issue of the child’s biological parentage is barely raised, as if it had been understood that he would be placed in a street in Faha on a cold winter night. And although the narrator of “The Child’s Time” is never revealed, it is clear that he is someone who knows people well and slyly makes room for his readers in the story.

Williams’s story uses what I would argue is a kind of magic reading, both as a plot point (Charlotte stealing Ronnie’s book is something that defines the character) and as a metaphor; Like the reference to Jack “having the same feeling as all readers.” We are approaching the narrow end of a book: How will this end??”