Michael Arditti

Doctor in trouble: Time of the Child, by Niall Williams, reviewed

A baby found abandoned at a Christmas fair in rural Ireland is taken to the village doctor for care and shelter – prompting a bold scheme on his part. But how will it work out?

Niall Williams. Credit: John Kelly 
issue 26 October 2024

In the early 1960s, glimmers of change start to appear in the Irish ‘backwater’ parish of Faha. A smuggled copy of Edna O’Brien’s banned The Country Girls is read surreptitiously by the doctor’s daughter, Ronnie Troy; a photograph of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president of the USA, hangs proudly on the postmistress’s wall.

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