The Abstainer by Ian McGuire

Published by Random House on September 15, 2020

The two key characters in The Abstainer are both bent on revenge. They must each decide whether satisfaction is worth its cost. Those decsions are difficult because the true cost of vengeance is often hidden.

James O’Conner drank himself into oblivion after his wife died. Having disgraced himself as a police officer in Ireland, he is transferred to Manchester, where he has the chance to make a new life. He stops drinking and develops a network of Irish informers who give him tips when the Fenians are planning a crime to further their rebel cause. The English officers tolerate O’Connor but they will never accept an Irishman as one of their own, no matter how often he proves himself. “He knows he is better off here in England were no one knows or cares about him, where he is free alike from history and expectation, but he wonders too how long this balancing act can last and how it will end.”

Stephen Doyle fought for the Union in the Civil War. He is the kind of man who only finds purpose in war. He believes war rescued him from “faithless years of lassitude and drift.” Traveling to England in the cause of Irish rebellion suits him, gives him a purpose and a use for his skills. Three members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood have been hanged in Manchester. Doyle has been sent from America “to take revenge for the hangings, show the world that we’re not weak or afraid.”

Michael Sullivan meets Doyle on the ship from America. Sullivan is O’Conner’s nephew. He’s running from trouble of his own making. Sullivan volunteers, and is later coerced, to spy on Doyle and the Fenians. He hopes to use his contact with Doyle to infiltrate the Fenians and learn the details of their plan.

Events do not go well for any of the characters. One of O’Connor’s informants is identified and killed. His sister Rose tells O’Connor she can’t stay in Manchester, having been branded as the sister of a traitor to the Irish cause. O’Connor flirts with the idea of making a life with her, but his plans are derailed by a moment of bad judgment and more deaths. O’Connor finds himself suspected of loyalty to the Fenians. His career in shambles, O’Connor decides to seek his own revenge by tracking down Doyle.

The story is dark but riveting. Like most stories of revenge, one killing leads to another. “There’s always another wrong to be made right, another lesson to be taught or learned.” O’Connor blames himself for the deaths of Doyle’s victims. “The dead are in command, he thinks, now and always. Each step away is a step toward, every turning is part of the same circle, and what we call love or hope is just an interlude, a way of forgetting what we are.”

Doyle's life is less complicated than O'Connor's, but they are similar characters, both groping for a path forward, uncertain of their destination. After Doyle leaves Manchester, not knowing that O’Connor is on his heels, he wonders if he will lose his resolve, grow soft and weak. To an outsider, the question is whether a life of contentment might be worthier than a life spent in pursuit of an unattainable cause.

Doyle and O’Connor each have a chance to walk away from vengeance. Whether they will do so, or whether they established their fates as soon they set revenge in motion, is the question that gives the novel its suspense. The ending is depressing and the last chapter seems disconnected from the rest of the novel, but the story as a whole is a compelling examination of the way in vengeance destroys lives, including the lives of the avengers.

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