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The conflict in Northern Ireland is referred to as "The Troubles" by the parties concerned. There are no quick fixes to it; there are, probably, no fixes at all. As Wil Carson, the "Prod" teenager in Simon Kerr's THE RAINBOW SINGER, so succinctly puts it, the existence of one side justifies the existence of the other; remove one side, and both sides would cease to exist.
THE RAINBOW SINGER is Kerr's debut novel; Kerr, born in Belfast in 1971, imputes through his Carson-creation the confident, wise-ass voice of one who knows his territory all too well. Indeed THE RAINBOW SINGER takes place in 1985, when Carson is in his mid-teens, just a bit older than Kerr would have been at that point in time. It is through Carson that Kerr provides his readers with a keen and unsettling insight into the conflict between Protestant and Catholic that, despite well-meaning but unrealistic intervention, will no doubt continue indefinitely.
Carson is a Prod, living in East Belfast, who unbeknownst to his divorced parents is a member of The Belvoir Brigade, a self-styled terrorist group that attempts to keep the local estate (that would be neighborhoods to you) free of the Taigs, or Catholics. Fate provides a disruption of Carson's summer when he is dragged, kicking and screaming, into Project Ulster, a peace initiative sponsored by the Belfast churches. The premise of Project Ulster is simple enough: take 10 Protestant and 10 Catholic teenagers out of Belfast and pair them up with teenagers of corresponding religious denominations in peaceful, tranquil Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a month. The idea is that the entire group will socialize and the individuals involved will get to know each other beyond their religious classifications and see each other as people.
The entire effort, of course, is doomed from the start, as the Belfast kids pick up in Milwaukee where they left off in Belfast. Well, some of them do, anyway, and Carson is in the thick of it along with his American counterpart Derry Horrowitz, a mountain of internalized anger that is not always successfully capped. Things become complicated when Carson falls in love with Theresa, a Catholic girl who is also part of Project Ulster. Carson's unrequited love provides the final spark for the ending that readers, with some uneasiness, will sense from the opening paragraph.
THE RAINBOW SINGER is a dark CATCHER IN THE RYE, with Carson being a hipper, funnier and, ultimately, more dangerous Holden Caulfield. Kerr throws in disparate elements --- heavy metal music (THE RAINBOW SINGER of the title is a reference to Ronnie James Dio, frontman for an incarnation of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow), firearms, and prejudice --- as catalysts for Carson's actions. But as the reader is given access to Carson's thought processes it is clear that he would have walked the same path without these influences. THE RAINBOW SINGER is a depressing tome, but not without humor. It is a cautionary tale for our times; to read it is to acquire the wisdom to know the difference between what can be changed, and what cannot.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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