This book tells us the story of Thomas McNultry's life in his own beautiful Irish voice. You can almost hear him aloud, that Irish accent sounding so beautifully clear, even when you read the story on paper like I did.

In the very beginning, somewhere around 1848, we find fourteen year old Thomas taking shelter from the rain under some bushes somewhere on the road to Missouri. He is hungry and only dressed in a old wheat sack tied at the waist, but that doesn't bother him in the slightest. He considers himself a lucky man. He survived the famine in Ireland, survived the passage to Canada between hundreds of hungry Irishmen in a ship's hold, survived the rampant fevers in the Canadian detention camps and managed to cross into America. He has been walking southwards ever since. Under that particular bush, I meets fifteen year old John Cole, his beloved friend for the rest of his life. When the rain has stopped, they walk together onwards to their mutual future. A future of good times and bad times but, whether good or bad, they have each other and that makes all the difference. Now Thomas continues to tell his story with John Cole at his side. Look at Thomas being a success in a burlesque show, look at Thomas and John in the army, killing Indians, which he regrets. Thomas displays no moral judgement about what he is doing, he has nothing against the Indians. He feels he is paid to do it, so he does. He is an ignorant boy. It sounds familiar, doesn't it! Then look at Thomas and John fighting the Confederates on the battle fields of the Civil War. His narrative of the actual combats go sometimes on for pages. His reports are shocking. I never read a more assiduous account of how it feels to find yourself in a man to man battle than as how Thomas recounts it to us. He does not hate the men he is stabbing down with his sable and even notes that, when looking them in the face in close combat, they resemble himself, just poor Irish boys who could have been from his hometown in Ireland. Himself a boy of seventeen or eighteen and having only a slight notion of what this war is about, he feels he must be on the right side as his opponents look so much worse for wear, skinny from hunger and most not even having been provided with shoes when fighting on the battlefields. After all the horrendous fighting, the war ends and the two boys go on. Thomas continues to describe their exploits in great detail, the bad and good decisions made, the travelling done on foot, mule or horse.

It was moving to read Thomas' tale because he was so unprejudiced to all and anything he encounters. His poetic, yet simple voice conjured up images of beauty and hardship. I must read more novels of Sebastian Barry, as he is a terrific writer. Wholeheartedly recommended.