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The River and Enoch O'Reilly

About the Book

The River and Enoch O'Reilly

In 1984, the river Rua overflows its banks near the Irish town of Murn. When the rains have stopped and the waters receded, nine bodies are found. What took them to the river?

Claiming to be just returned from America, self-made minister Enoch launches a radio show he calls The Revival Hour. After a short but spectacular run, it ends in disaster and he’s forced back to the family home. There, he finds clues to a mythic connection between the dead --- this brotherhood of the flood --- the natural rhythms of the earth, a secret language called Riverish, and his lost father.

In this fever-dream of a novel, Peter Murphy issues a shaman’s call to conjure together various traditions --- the gothic, the Irish, the Southern, the infusion of music into language, the infusion of myth into music and life, the search of a lost son for his long-lost father, our deep connections to our homelands and the cycles of nature. He establishes himself here, firmly, as one of Ireland’s newest literary wonders.

The River and Enoch O'Reilly
by Peter Murphy

  • Publication Date: September 10, 2013
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books
  • ISBN-10: 0547904770
  • ISBN-13: 9780547904771