Dave's Book Blog: "History of the Rain" by Niall Williams

Friday, 10 April 2026

"History of the Rain" by Niall Williams

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2014, this lyrically written novel traces the tragic history of an Irish family.

It is narrated in the first person past tense by the phenomenally well-read young daughter, who is herself in bed, ill, possibly with a terminal disease. This, together with the sometimes breathless prose (“... Sean O'Grady of the O'Gradys beyond in Bealaha, not the one who was married to the one of the Kerry Spillanes who had the red hair and went off with the Latvian, the other one, who had the arm after the accident, was going out for it must have been on to ten years with that wonderful Marie of the O'Learys, had already survived a family so numerous that two of them were named Michael, and the father who went into Crotty's pub in Kilrush and woke up in Paddington, him.”; 2.16), and the acerbic comments on others, gives it a YA vibe. It helps that she has the world-weariness of the invalid, together with the wisdom that conveys, and a degree of naivete which feels perfectly teenage.

It is the style that turns what might otherwise have been a faintly depressing story into an entertaining commentary on life. I particularly enjoyed the comments on the other characters in the village, from the postmistress who, after her post office had been axed in efficiency cuts, went to town once a week to buy stamps so that she could sell them from her front room, thus maintaining her self-conferred status, to the teacher ("Lady Macbeth"), to her father, a failing farmer who writes poetry. Some of these provided laugh-out-loud moments (and readers of this blog will no how rarely I even chuckle):

“Even Tommy McGinley was quietly admired despite the kind of hit-on-the-head mouth-open expression he got from eating cork, after hearing on RTE it was the main ingredient in Viagra, and not what they actually said, that the main ingredient was made in Cork.” (2.15)
“Canice Clohessy, The Constipated, in whose unique case shit didn't happen.” (3.2)

This comedy of weird people enables the narrator to construct a deep and perceptive meditation on the human condition. And it never gets pretentious! The comedy rescues it, and the glorious magic of the prose.

Selected quotes:

“The longer my father lived in this world the more he knew there was another to come.” (first line)
“I don't know if time tarnishes or polishes a human soul.” (1.1)
“The basis of the Philosophy of Impossible Standard is that no matter how hard you try you can't ever be good enough. The Standard raises as you do.” (1.1)
“On good days it can be a bit Michelangelo, like you've drunk Heaven-Up. ... No angels though. I've never gone the whole Sistine.” (1.4)
“Once the Councillor started getting asked his opinion, fatally he became convinced of the existence of his own intelligence.You ask him a question you get a paragraph.” (1.6)
“That was always Mam's role, to show Dad he was alright, to redeem him from the place he kept pulling himself into.” (1.6)
“Back in those days once you were wedded you were in Holy Deadlock, and in Ireland the priests had decided that once a man entered a woman there was No Way Out.” (1.8)
“It's a thing you just never hear, the weather in the next life.” (1.9)
“That's the thing about boys. ... Boys have No Go Areas, they have an entire geography of places you can't go because if you do they'll crack open, they and, not ever.” (1.15)
“Plots are for precocious schoolboys.” (1.16)
“Boys can fall deeper in love than girls, they’re a lot bigger and heavier and they can fall much further and harder and when they hit the ground of reality there's just this terrible splosh that some other woman is going to have to come along and try to put back into the bottle.” (1.16)
“In the morning the birds are singing with that extra-demented loudness they have in spring in Clare, they're all ADHD and they've got this urgent message they're trying to deliver but because God's a comedian they can only speak it in chirrup.” (2.3)
“Basically, at every moment our farm is trying to return to some former state where muck and rushes thrive.” (2.7)
"She's in the deep waters of realising that if he was gone her life would be over, which in my book is basically substance essence and quintessence of Love.” (2.10)
“Sometimes things are darker, worse, and with inexplicable torment you hear the gulls, whose complaints are complex and constant when they come in over Cappa with cries crazy it seems from banishment.” (2.15)
“When I lost my brother I lost more than half the world. I was left in somewhere narrow as the margin, and in there, parallel to the main text, I would write my marginalia.” (3.2)
“Each book a writer writes has all the others in it, so there's a library that's like a river and it keeps on going.” (3.6)