We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It, a Memoir of My Irish Boyhood by Tom Phelan

When I see a book blurb that says something like “if you liked that you’ll like this” I am always a tiny bit suspect. I do understand that we are being hand sold and guided toward something we might like. In the case of We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It, it was the cover that got me. There is no mistaking where this book is set and when. Ireland in another time.

Tom Phelan tells us what it was like to live in rural Ireland while he was growing up in the 1940s. He tells us chapter by chapter about the experiences of his young life, from his father’s plan to bring a wife home to his childhood with four siblings living on the farm without electricity, plumbing, motor vehicles or much thought to what the future would be, and in spite of those don’t-haves having a full rich life.

In each chapter Tom is a little older, new people in his life are introduced and there are new smiles and sometimes out loud laughs from us. We meet Nurse Byrne who birthed the babies and washed the dead and tended anything needing her attention in between. We watch turkey eggs hatch in the kitchen

cupboards, go to school, watch his father’s devotion to his mother, and then there’s the influence of the church and the nuns. Oh, my.

Sometimes we think we like a certain kind of book – adventure, loud, mysterious, scary or car crashing movement. And sometimes we want to just sit at the table after dinner and tell stories to each other, sharing our early lives and revealing how we became who we are. That’s this book. A quiet, funny, reflective telling of a life. It puts one in the mood to plan a dinner party so we can share our own stories.

The Wolf and the Watchman

The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt Och Dag

      I could begin this by saying all the cliché things that have already been said. I’d be accused of lack of originality, plagiarizing what’s already been said about this book, and maybe because of the list of accolades you might dismiss even attempting to read this. But you would be wrong. I was invited to read this as an advance copy. It looked a little out of my comfort zone but intriguing, too. So I said yes. And I’m so glad I did. I might not have picked it up on my own. This is one of those reads that someone might need to put into your hands saying, “This one!!” In the book business we call that hand selling. I can remember some books I used to carry around with me in the store and I’d put them into the hands of customers and say, “don’t leave without this one.” I would say the same to you for The Wolf and the Watchman.

      It’s not pretty. It’s not easy. It might be out of your comfort zone, especially in the beginning when a body is found floating in a sodden lake in southern Stockholm. It’s the mid 1750’s and things are changing not for the better. There is much political angst and the standard of living is slipping. Out of the lake a badly mutilated body is fished out and not a whole lot of people care. But a body is a body and this one is so badly mutilated, someone must care.

      Cecil Winge, a lawyer conspicuously dying of consumption, is charged with solving the mystery/murder. He enlists the help of Mikel Cardell, a former watchman and a man who has issues with his alcohol consumption. Mikel will be Cecil’s legs, taking us through the dark alleys and palaces, we will meet the good and the not so good and we will see things we don’t want to see.

From here, truly, buckle yourself in and try not to get papercuts on your fingers from turning the pages.

     The investigation of this death takes us high and low we meet the good and the not so good, there are many layers slowly peeled away we see it all and in the end, we even see ourselves. We will be in the underbelly of Stockholm, we will meet people we don’t want to admit to but the author has given us a gift of a mirror.   This one.  Don't leave without this one.