The enrty below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Time of the Child by Niall Williams returns us to the setting for his last novel, This is Happiness. We’re deposited back in the rural Irish village of Faha, where the men work hard and douse end-of-workday frustrations at the local bars while their long-suffering wives tend to domestic chores and ride herd on multiple children. The dreary weather bears down on them mercilessly, with rain and constant mizzle, endless muddy boots and hand-me-down clothes for children who scrounge out what passes for an education at the local school and face futures with little more to offer. Regular attendance at church offers a small sense of community and whispers of solace, mostly to the women, who see only their husbands’ passions for drink and gambling.

The time is just before Christmas, 1962, and the title resonates with all the seasonal observances shared by Christians, especially the Catholics of Faha, the world over. The lives of Williams’ principle characters are forever changed by another child and its virgin mother. One such character is Jude Quinlan, a 12-year-old boy whose major responsibility is fetching his drunken father from the pub each night. Jude finds an abandoned infant and, with the help of adult male twins, takes her to the home of Dr. Jack Troy, who swears to secrecy the three of them. The three magi of the Christmas story?

Like his doctor father before him, Jack Troy’s life is circumscribed by his responsibility to care for the citizens of Faha. His unmarried daughter, Ronnie, lives with him, supports him in his medical practice and maintains their home. It is a household of responsibility, repressed emotions, and providing for the needs of others.  The doctor mourns the death of his wife and also that of a woman for whom he had later developed feelings, barely expressed.  Daughter Ronnie also has an air of melancholy.

The arrival of the infant is kept secret from the community, but Troy, and especially his 29-year-old daughter, are clearly bonding with her. The baby breathes life into the household and love blossoms. The good doctor conceives of a plot to keep government services from seizing the baby, turning her over to the usual Catholic orphanage.

There are other stories that Williams weaves into the principal narrative, including the question of a priest who is suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s disease. In that story, too, the doctor plays a key role.

Williams’ talent is to bring alive a cluster of the town’s characters, who are quirky, often far from admirable, always struggling,   and not initially likable.  Their peculiarities can be quite comic, if reprehensible. But, in rounding them out, Williams evokes a sense of their common humanity, bringing the reader to share his empathy with them.  Tine of the Child is about struggle, belief, redemption and, above all, love.   It’s a marvelous read, something I suspect many of us could use these days.