By Megan Thomas
This came home in the nb book award evening’s goodie bag and has officially been added to my unofficial list of nb-recommended books which never ever fail to impress me. Kala is an exquisitely told, masterfully plotted thriller/coming-of-age/Irish noir novel that is consistently delicate yet moreish throughout.
I shy away from crime novels. I try not to typecast, but generally I find they prioritise plot over character development and the expert crafting of the prose. Obviously, I am regularly reminded that this is a nonsense theory with books like Kala, which is evidence of not just the existence but the importance of literary thrillers, if only to remind losers like me that genre, done right, in no way impedes the literary appeal of the novel.
Set in the height of Summer in Kinlough, a large tourist town in north County Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland, we are introduced to a group of teenagers: Kala, Helen, Joe, Mush, Aoife and Aiden. They are the embodiment of adolescent nostalgia, straddling the line between playful innocence and a suffocating desire for their real adult lives to begin. But, as we learn from the get-go, this comfortable bubble bursts when Kala disappears and never returns.
Now, after many years of disappointment from this “real life” they yearned for, Helen, Joe and Mush are all in town when Kala’s remains are discovered in the woods. This opens a case long-closed and with it, a can of worms that even those not involved are eager to keep shut. But as one secret leads to the next, there’s no slowing the momentum of revelations of what actually happened.
Perhaps this will always be the case when a story centres around the death of a child, but the tragedy of time is so powerful in this novel. Time lost, time wasted, time captured in a moment (or a polaroid), the seeming abundance and clarity of it in youth compared to its fleeting transparency as we get older.
I was deeply moved by this book, its portrayal of friendship, loyalty, loss, love, and the crippling power of retrospect and regret. It’s only January but it might already be my best read of 2025.
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