He Used to Be Me: Heartbreaking debut about a fragile character on the margins of Mayo society

He Used to Be Me

Author: Anne Walsh Donnelly

ISBN-13: 9781848409071

Publisher: New Island

Guideline Price: €12.95

Some books sneak up on you, starting off as one thing before hitting you with emotions you didn’t expect, and a power you didn’t see coming. Anne Walsh Donnelly has written such a book.

Her debut novel, He Used to Be Me, is rendered in an experimental format. Words leap about the page. Italics are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. White space is a constant. A reader can discern much from the look and feel of a book, and here the immediate impression is that we are in a realm where intellect is prized over heart; artful construction over storytelling. Depending on the type of reader you are, it’s possible that a book with this intentionally higgledy-piggledy format may induce a little sigh.

So much for judging a book by its cover. In 116 spare, charged pages, Walsh Donnelly’s novel about Daft Mutt will break your heart. Who is Daft Mutt? He’s a weary, fragile character who has existed for decades on the margins of society in Mayo. “I’m not as mad as you think,” he tells us in the introduction. By way of explanation, Matt returns us to his childhood: to his father who would wallop him with a hawthorn stick and to his mother who was too afraid to cry. When Matt was just 10, he and his twin brother, Eoin Paul, got sick. Forty days later, Matt recovered. Eoin Paul did not. “When I came out of hospital, Eoin Paul came too only he was in a wooden box,” Matt tells us.

As an adult, it seems that things will improve for Matt. He escapes his father and his homeplace. He meets Harriet and they begin a relationship. They have two children, travel and return to Ireland. But there is an accident and Matt finds himself at the mercy of the Irish care system. To say more would be to reveal too much, but after that, nothing is ever the same again.

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Walsh Donnelly is a relatively new name in Irish fiction – the Carlow-born, Mayo-dwelling writer first published a poetry collection, The Woman With an Owl Tattoo, in 2020 – but her work has an assuredness of tone and a mature voice, and in Daft Mutt she has created a character that lingers. A profound, moving experience.