The Resurrectionists Book

The Resurrectionists finds Irish-born Michael Collins returning to the wastelands of Hicksville, USA: the same terrain as his Booker-shortlisted novel The Keepers of Truth. Set predominently in an anonymous Michigan town--"the world capital of nowhere"--at the fag end of the 1970s, this is a slightly muddled, if endearing, family saga cum murder mystery. The book is narrated by Frank Cassidy, a man whose parents burned to death in suspicious circumstances when he was just a child. He has discovered that his Uncle Ward, who raised him, has recently been murdered. The prime suspect is in a coma but the police are certain he is Chester Green, the Cassidys' old neighbour (Frank always believed that Green was somehow involved in the fatal fire). There is however, one slight problem; Chester died of influenza 27 years ago. Abandoning his tedious job in a New Jersey fast food restaurant, Frank gathers up his clan--wife Honey (whose ex-boyfriend is on death row), stepson Robert Lee and dinosaur-obsessed son Ernie--steals a car and heads for Michigan in search of answers and possibly a share of Ward's farm. Back in his Michigan hometown Frank settles down, gets a job and begins to unravel the enigmas surrounding his uncle's death with, genuinely, surprising results. Collins' might fill his tale with the kind of oddballs who tend to populate David Lynch films: one-legged encyclopaedia salesmen; rhinestone-shirted truckers, frazzled Vietnam war vets and enigmatic polyester-clad old-timers, but it is his touching, humorous descriptions of mundane family life that resonate. His television-addicted Cassidys owe a good deal to The Simpsons; their appetite for junk food, Sesame Street, The Brady Bunch and reruns of Gilligan's Island are carefully stitched into the narrative. At times Collins can mistake lists of their viewing habits for convincing period detail but this gripping, charming suspense novel offers a thoughtful snapshot of America shaking off Watergate and preparing for Reagan. --Travis ElboroughRead More