Long Time, No See

2013 Longlist

Long Time, No See introduces us to the unforgettable world of Mister Psyche in the isolated coastal townland of Ballintra in the north-west of Ireland. Recent school-leaver, occasional worker, full-time companion and Malibu-provider to Uncle Joe-Joe and his friend, The Blackbird, Psyche is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, undone by a recent traumatic event.

Hanging out with men some fifty-plus years his senior proves hazardous for Mister Psyche when the appearance of a bullet-hole in Uncle Joe-Joe’s window draws him into a series of (mis)adventures which unsettle and bemuse. Perhaps The Blackbird is losing it? Or perhaps The General has decided to act on a decades-old grudge? Whichever way, as the paranoia grabs a creeping hold of Uncle Joe-Joe, his fragile world threatens to collapse. And it is Mister Psyche who must digest this and acknowledge the new world taking shape in the old …

A novel about community, family, love and bonds across generations, Long Time, No See is one of the most significant novels to come out of Ireland in this new century. An epic in miniature, peopled by a cast of innocents and broken misfits, its still, lyrical power casts a miraculous literary spell.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

Dermot Healy is a poet, novelist and dramatist. He lives in County Sligo and is the author of A Goat’s Song, Sudden Times, and The Bend for Home. He has previously won the Hennessy Award (twice), the Tom Gallon Award, the Encore Award and the AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award

Librarians’ Comments

A wonderfully funny novel of cross-generation relationships in lyrical, lilting prose.

In this epic novel labours and days of man are revealed within the framework of eternal (for humankind) and finite (for a single man) cycles of existence. Glorification of rural Ireland is simultaneously a requiem for it. The richness of local accents and the craft of dramatic composition are striking.