Review: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.

Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry’s latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.

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★★★★✩

This is not the kind of book I usually would read, nor the kind of book that I usually would review after reading (unless it was an ARC), but it’s also not the kind of book I feel comfortable giving a 4 stars without mentioning some things.

First: it was one of the weirdest formats I’ve ever seen. It’s all told in practically a monologue where the protagonist Thomas McNulty, a barely literate Irish soldier in America, tells us the story of his life, especially focusing on his years during the wars alongside his romantic partner and future husband John Cole.

Because it tells two wars and it doesn’t shy away from gruesome details, not just the gore but the awful conditions they’re in, the sicknesses, the smells, it’s not a light read at all. And yet it flows somehow smoothly, even the parts I’ve read on ebook (although for convenience I’ve read most of it as audiobook). Of course it’s still emotionally hard to read, and I would definitely recommend you don’t force yourself through it if you’re squeamish.

My favorite thing about the novel was of course the relationship between Thomas and John, and yet it’s like nothing I’ve ever read. I’m used to reading romances where the reward is seeing the couple come together, but here if it was fanfiction it would be tagged as established relationship. I think where this book really succeeds is here, in the portrayal of queer people in an historical setting. While the book doesn’t focus on them as a couple much and we hardly ever get a feel of their dynamic, you still can’t help but root for them, and the windows we do get into their relationship show such a loving pair, you are likely not to forget them.

Speaking of queerness, Thomas doesn’t have the words for it so we don’t really know, but he’s very likely not a cis man, maybe he’s a trans woman or maybe he’s genderfluid, and I think in this case it’s very understandable for him as a character to not have a way to define himself, but he definitely has ways throughout the novel to give expression to his gender through actions if not through words. He never uses anything other than he/him so this is what I use here too.

A big part of the book is also about them adopting a little Native American orphan girl, Winona, and how they come to love her as if they were her biological parents. I have a soft spot for queer people adopting kids, especially in a setting like this, but this part of the plot also brings me to the more sore spots of this novel, which are the reason why I would like to read the reviews of POC and especially Native American readers.

Because of how this story is told, we don’t get an outsider point of view, not even the author’s or a third person narrator. Thomas is doing the telling, with his barely literate English, with his nineteenth century’s viewpoint and with his definitely-not-PC language, and his dry account of the war and the killing of Native Americans. Nothing is ever portrayed in a positive light, it’s very clear how Thomas and John are pawns that kill whoever the enemy is because by the point they’re in front of them it’s kill-or-be-killed. And I think there are many other instances of the effects of the genocide and colonialism that are maybe not exactly something Thomas can comment on with his limited means, but through their portrayal alone they shine in a negative light in the eyes of the reader, so it’s not like I think that Thomas or the author ever think any of this is right.

While I understand this is how Thomas himself would have talked, I still wonder if it’s right of a white author to write about these events, to type racial slurs (that, by the way, then have to be read by what I’m pretty sure is a white narrator in the audiobook) and portray racism and genocide of Native Americans on page. I have no doubt the research Sebastian Barry did was immense, although I have no means to judge how historically accurate everything is, but I wonder if historical accuracy can’t be accomplished at the same time as knowing what’s one’s place as a white author. And while this is not a review of the sequel, from early reviews it seems like it will be from Winona’s point of view and focus mostly on her pain as a Native American and as a young woman, so this fact makes me think that maybe SB didn’t really ask himself where he should stop. This is why I couldn’t comfortably give the book a full five stars and I will try to find reviews and comments by Native American readers, and I would advise caution trying to read this (think about any trigger warning you can imagine, this book probably has it).