The First Verse

Barry McCrea

A truly haunting examination of the power of obsession, in this case of the possibility of divination through passages in books, on a young Dublin student. Fortunately the wonderful, and totally unexpected, ending saved me from swearing off reading forever.

Extract

As my eyes began greedily examining them for sortes, and as the giddy sensation that the room would soon spin into Paris hit me again, I thought this has to stop. Maybe Fionnula has a point, this is out of control. I sat on the bed and tried to take stock of my situation, but the room swam in a sea of fragments before my eyes. And then, the solid shape suddenly looming in the incandescent coral shades floating around me, I remembered my date on Capel Street Bridge.

Parallels