Today is my stop on the blog tour for Eden Burning by Deirdre Quiery. I have a guest post from the author today talking about what can be learned from the book. If you like the sound of that, you can click here to order your copy now. Don't forget to check out the other stops on the tour for more exclusive content and reviews.
Here's what it's all about...
Catapulting us into 1970s Belfast in the heart of the Troubles, Eden Burning pulses with conflict and introduces us to a cast of characters we profoundly care about, even when they are warring with each other. Above all, though, it is a novel with a true spiritual and emotional heart. --Rachel Connor, bestselling author of Sisterwives
Northern Ireland, 1972. On the Crumlin Road, Belfast, the violent sectarian Troubles have forced Tom Martin to take drastic measures to protect his family. Across the divide William McManus pursues his own particular bloody code, murdering for a cause. Yet both men have underestimated the power of love and an individuals belief in right and wrong, a belief that will shake the lives of both families with a greater impact than any bomb blast. This is a compelling, challenging story of conflict between and within families driven by religion, belief, loyalty and love. In a world deeply riven by division, a world of murders, bomb blasts and assassinations, how can any individual transcend the seemingly inevitable violence of their very existence?
WHAT
CAN BREXIT LEARN FROM EDEN BURNING?
My Uncle Francie was abandoned at the age
of 3 by my psychopathic Grandfather and placed as a three year old with his 4
siblings into the hands of my mother who was then aged 16. It was 1942 and
Belfast was blitzed. You will see a little of that story in Eden Burning when Catherine goes into
hospital during the blitz and gives birth to twins. Faction meets fiction.
Francie became a controversial person as he
grew up. He was at first invited to weddings but after a series of punching
people in the face and blood running onto the wedding field, he lost
invitations to subsequent weddings and funerals. By the way funerals are very
important in Irish life – you celebrate, dance, play music and tap your hand on
the head of the deceased who is non-living in the bedroom. To be isolated from
a funeral is the equivalent to being barred from a wedding.
What has that to do with Brexit and Eden
Burning?
Well – living in Northern Ireland with flags
from either community – floating as symbols of hatred and narrow mindedness
formed my thinking.
I understand violence. I grew up in it. To
be put out of your house at gunpoint, to see the houses of others who felt that
their only power of response was to burn to the earth that which they had built
as their home and where they had created their livelihood – I understood within
the flaming fires and smoke - hatred.
I also learnt about love within this
experience.
Brexit for me as an author is about – isolation,
narcissism of culture, division and a lack of a sense of that we are all in
this together. We are on this planet. We need to co-operate to let the next
generations live. The vote to leave reminds me so much of the hatred and
vitriol exclusion of others. It reminds me of Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
What I wanted to do in writing Eden Burning
was to explore this hatred which we are all capable of holding within us and to
offer an Exit of redemption and love. I believe Eden Burning tells a story of
the insanity of fragmentation, isolationism and a way out of our craziness
through forgiveness and love.
Thanks to Deirdre for stopping by today and readers remember to check out the other stops on the tour!
#LoveBooksTours
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