3.5 stars
2016 Costa Book of the Year winner
Barry's prose as always is beautiful and vivid and he captures the most fateful years in America's past.
Days Without End is a coming of age story about friendship, survival love and the tragedies of war.

This is my fifth novel by Sebastian Barry and Days Without End has a connection with other novels by this author and the McNulty Family, this time we are introduced to Thomas an ancestor who is orphaned during the Irish Famine and at the age of 17 makes his ways to North America where he signs up for the US Army in the 1850s and befriends John Cole and they go on to fight in the Indian Wars and Ultimately the Civil War. While there is a small connection with other novels which feature the McNulty family this a very much stand alone novel as there is very little reference to Thomas McNulty's Irish past.

I always enjoy Barry's prose and stories as he manages to convey a wonderful sense of time and place in all of his novels. The massacres of the Indian nations I found difficult reading and so horrific but very realistic and well written. I wasn't so convinced by other elements of the story and found quite a lot of it improbable situations occurred in the plot.
I would have loved to have read this a as a book club read as it is a short novel and would make a great discussion book.

I enjoyed the book but [bc:A Long Long Way|780932|A Long Long Way|Sebastian Barry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348777754s/780932.jpg|368906] and [bc:The Secret Scripture|3419808|The Secret Scripture|Sebastian Barry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325714117s/3419808.jpg|3460278] will stil remain my favorites by this author. ( )

This is the third book running I’ve read with a first person narration [CORRECTION: fourth, but number four was non-fiction so doesn't count]. Of the three, it is by far the most immediately involving, thanks to Barry’s incredible writing. From the opening lines, the reader can hear Thomas McNulty’s distinctive voice:

The method of laying out a corpse in Missouri sure took the proverbial cake. Like decking out our poor lost troopers for marriage rather than death. All their uniforms brushed down with lamp-oil into a state never seen when they were alive. Their faces clean shaved, as if the embalmer sure didn’t like no whiskers showing. No one that knew him could have recognised Trooper Watchorn because those famous Dundrearies was gone. Anyway Death likes to make a stranger of your face.

How's that for an opening paragraph? I loved McNulty’s poetic turns of phase and clipped sentences. They are especially poignant when he talks of the cruelties of the world, of which he confronts many. His life begins in Ireland, where the Potato Famine kills his family and forces him to emigrate. In America he grows up and joins the army, fighting first Native Americans then Confederates in the Civil War. Despite the brutality, horror, and suffering of these wars, the first word I would use to describe this book is ‘beautiful’. It depicts the ways that love and companionship make life worth living in the midst of chaos and carnage. Yet this is definitely not a sentimental narrative, nor is it one that neglects the politics of the time and the damage they caused to daily life for the mass of people. This part, in the wake of a massacre of Native Americans, will definitely stay with me:

Same would be if soldiers fell on my family in Sligo and cut out our parts. When that ancient Cromwell come to Ireland he said he would leave nothing alive. Said the Irish were vermin and devils. Clean out the country for good people to step into. Make a paradise. Now we make this American paradise I guess. Guess it be strange so many Irish boys doing this work. Ain’t that the way of the world. No such item as virtuous people.

McNulty is also a distinctive character due to being a soldier who is also a trans woman (to use modern terms) and married to a man. One moment of levity amid the savagery was the briefly mentioned wedding of Thomasina to John Cole by ‘a half-blind preacher in a temple called Bartram House’. Between horrific wars, Thomasina and John Cole (he is rarely referred to just as John) form a happy family with Winona, a Native American girl. They were part of the squad ordered to murder her first family, something that they understandably cannot forget or forgive themselves for. This family is constantly under threat from the horrific state of America in the mid-to-late 19th century. The wars never really end - after the Civil War is over Native Americans are still being mass-murdered by the army and ex-Confederates still roam around in militias lynching black people and Union supporters. Violence is threaded through McNulty’s life, but so is love. Although John Cole is an unobtrusive presence, he remains throughout and the two look after one another in a touching fashion.

I found the ending, in which McNulty very narrowly dodges a death sentence for killing a soldier to protect Winona, deeply moving. Given that this is literary fiction, I assumed that it would end with McNulty being executed in order to make the story as tragic as possible. Thus the reprieve is all the more powerful when it comes. Barry adeptly allows Thomasina to be both everyman and a distinctive figure. Her life and loves tell both a timeless story of war’s brutality and the importance of family and a much rarer one about sexuality and gender 150 years ago.

What a wonderful novel. While paging through it in order to write this review, I realised I could happily re-read the entire thing immediately for the sheer beauty of the writing. That is a very rare experience and one worth treasuring. ( )

I listened to this in audiobook format.

This novel is about a pair of Irish immigrants to the US in the mid-1800s. It follows them through soldiering multiple wars, amusing employment, forbidden love, and finding peace and happiness. The writing is fierce, raw and graphic. The extensive war scenes and horrendous living conditions were a lot to process. Weirdly though the tone is one of optimism and good humor. At its core the novel is about the chaos and senseless of war. Only camaraderie and love save the day. It's a beautifully written novel and the narrator's deep Irish brogue really brought out the ultra-dry wit. I highly recommend this book, but don't expect "entertainment" as much a wild ride, much of which is pretty grim. ( )

"There's old sorrow in your blood like second nature and new sorrow that maddens the halls of sense."

In "Days Without End" old sorrow does not begin nor end with genocide on the Great Plains. For Thomas McNulty, a young Irishman transplanted by a harrowing sea journey to the young United States, sorrow reaches back to Thomas Cromwell and the murder of Irish to make way for the English Nation.

By the time McNulty joins the armies of the United States he is embroiled in a campaign to make way for European pioneers across the west. This requires the extermination of the many Indian peoples who count the land as their own.

No treaty, no agreement, no ceasefire means a whit to the conquerors.

Inside this landscape is a love story between two men. McNulty and John Cole bury their love inside barroom theatrics, inside the battlefields of the Civil War, and out the other end to a rural Tennessee.

Sebastian Barry draws out the beauty in the love and the raw beauty of the landscape in extraordinarily crisp prose. I will not forget the thunder of the buffalo herds and the cloud of dust by which you see them miles away.

These are some of those quite beautiful days. Days to temper the violence. The bloodlust. ( )

I can't remember the last time I cared so much and so deeply about fictional characters. I couldn't read this book fast enough and the last several chapters had me hyperventilating from sheer concern for these people and the outcome of their story. As I said a book hasn't made me feel emotions this violently in quite a long time, for that, the characters and the beautiful and sleek writing style it gets a 5/5 easily. ( )

I read this because it fit a couple of challenges. Sebastian Barry is an Irish writer. His writing is excellent. I listened to the audiobook and it was a pleasure to listen to the prose. This was set in the time period of the potato famine in Ireland and the Civil War and Indian Wars in the US. It won the 2017 Walter Scott Prize (Historical Fiction). It does feature cross dressing, sexual content (not explicit), and frequent swearing. ( )

Set in the turbulent United States of the 1850s and 1860s, Days Without End is narrated by an Irish immigrant named Thomas McNulty. Having escaped the great hunger as a teenager, McNulty finds himself in the American West where he befriends fellow Irish immigrant Thomas Cole. The two young men find work dressing in women's clothing to dance with miners, forming a lifelong bond that eventually becomes romantic and sexual.

McNulty and Cole next join the army, first fighting in the Indian Wars of the West and later called back up to fight in the Civil War. Their experience in the military is bloody and full of atrocities. This is contrasted with scenes of domestic life of the committed gay couple. They even adopt an orphaned Lakota girl, Winona, and raise her as their own child. This book can get very disturbing with it's almost casual depiction of the brutality and violence of war, but it's also an endearing story of found family. ( )

While Days Without End by Sebastian Barry is not a classic western, it illuminates a particularly violent time in American history as seen through the eyes of young Irish immigrant, Thomas McNulty.
Opening in the late 1850s, we meet Thomas and his best friend John Cole. With not a lot of options open to poor orphan boys like themselves, the two boys spend some time as dancing partners for miners but when they grow and mature into young men and no longer appeal as females, they join the army. At first they are sent out West to participate in the Indian Wars and as their closeness develops into love, they are soon to be involved in the brutality of the American Civil War.

The author has created two memorable characters, anti-heroes in many ways, cross dresser Thomas and his beloved partner John even adopt a young Indian girl to complete their small family. The times are difficult and the book is packed with violence but the writing is poetic, raw and gripping as the story unfolds. Much like Cormac McCarthy’s writing, the combination of lyrical prose and bloody actions work together to make the story come alive on the pages.

I suspect that Days Without End is a book that one either loves or hates and I come down firmly on the side of love. The plot can seem a little unreal at times, but the author delivers his story is such an interesting way that I found Days Without End to be a very satisfactory read. ( )

Thomas McNulty is now on my list of all-time favourite narrators. He is witty, wise, thoughtful, playful and most of all humble. He's a wonderful companion and he guides the reader through incredible hardship and modest joys with the same tender care he tries to show his fellow man. The events that he describes and the characters that people his story are also captivating.

The prose is beautiful and at times lyrical but never ostentatious. It may be a little bit self-conscious early on, but by page 30 it has a rhythm and authenticity that is wonderful.

I want to write as little about the events of the story as I can, because I knew nothing and loved how it unfolded. However, I thought the treatment of the brutal racism of the time, particularly in relation to the attempted genocide of the Native American people, is frank and unflinching in a way I found very moving. As a gay man, I loved that this is a fundamentally queer story, that it is propelled and motivated by the queerness of some of the characters.

I think this is a masterpiece and I tried to savour it and devour it as the same time, as we do with books we really love. ( )

Two male characters bonded as youngsters set out on adventures in the military in the wild west and then the Civil War. Their love for each other is intimate and enduring. There are many reference to indigenous leaders and also female Native American character they rescue after an ambush.

In the spirit of Cold Mountain, tells the tale of the experience of being the "little people" caught up in the tragedies and atrocities unleashed by "The Great Men of History." The writing skill of staying in voice was intriguing and phenomenal. I also appreciated the everydayness of the queer experience in the 19th century.

I wonder if the author struggled to fine an ending. The ironic juxtapositions and pathos seemed to have faded out at the end.

Overall, well worth the relationship with the characters for the tour through 19th Century America. ( )

(15) I really like this author. I think he writes books loosely based on the McNulty family of Sligo, Ireland. Displaced during the troubles and the potato famine, this is the story of a young boy whose family dies of illness and manages to escape as a teen to America in the mid-19th century. He becomes part of the Army because there is not much else for him to do and meets his life companion John Cole. This is about their adventures as soldiers and I guess gay men on the American frontier fighting Indians and then embroiled in the Civil War. It is both brutal and at times exquisitely tender. Very reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy with the choppy sentences in a form of dialect and stark violence. Also very similar to many a novel I have read over the last few years about the Western forts and the conflicts with gold rush settlers and the poor Native Americans. I wish the founders of this country could have a do-over sometimes.

As with all his novels I read, stunning - but actually not an easy read. There is something about his style that makes you lose your place and want to put the book down despite the fact that the narrative and subject matter is quite compelling. I think the choppy attempting to be Uber-realistic dialogue is to blame. Doesn't always flow well. And the gay thing seemed may be thrown in for max PC points.

I think his new novel is a continuation of this story and I will read as soon as I can. Despite a few weak criticisms - I love this author. A favorite for literary historical fiction. Bravo! He needs a prestigious award of some type. Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel... ( )

I wanted to like this book much more than I did. I found myself easily skimming the many endless battle, army, and landscape descriptions, especially in the beginning. I have never found those aspects interesting and this wasn't an exception, so be aware that this novel is in large part a war novel.

I enjoyed the last half of this book much more than the first; Thomas' character, gender, and even feelings seemed much more concrete and poignant as he aged and I finally fell for the lulling, river-like prose that Barry drenched this novel in. I found myself by the last 10% really letting myself be taken by it, and by then I was so enamored by Thomas and his family it felt as if I'd known them for the 30 odd years this novel covers. That's rare for me. I found myself not wanting it to really end.

I'll keep my Kindle notes on for anyone wanting to see my favorite bits, which there were many towards the end. I finished it feeling drained and raw and teary-eyed—and I do recommend it as I am obviously in the minority on my less than perfect thoughts. It's worth a read for the frankly beautiful inner-monologues of a (probably) transgender individual in a time when words or awareness were non-existent, and for the queer relationship and found family Thomas(ina) finds home and meaning in.


(Also, no bury your gays! Hooray!) ( )

Dagar utan slut utspelas under indiankrigen och det amerikanska inbördeskriget. Berättare är Thomas McNulty, irländsk emigrant som flytt oåren i hemlandet. I det nya landet träffar han en annan ung man, John Cole, och de blir snart oskiljaktiga vänner. Tillsammans får de arbete som revyartister på en saloon, utklädda till kvinnor, sedan tar de värvning i armén, i vilken de får uppleva alla tänkbara fasor i den våldsamma kampen om en ny kontinent och dess rikedomar. Mot denna historiska fond utvecklas berättelsen snart till en stor och drabbande kärleksroman som utmanar även vår tids syn på kön, ursprung och identitet.

the platonic ideal of the queer historical fiction i am forever seeking!!! ( )

It's like riding a 250-page poem in a state of bliss with all your emotions exposed.

Best read squirrelled away from distractions; borne by its voice and language. It’s closer to poetry than narrative.

Books are books. Stories are stories. Craft is craft. Sometimes books are art. This is one. It’s also a tale and missive of love.

Brutal, yet beautiful. ( )

Wow! After a forced hiatus of over a month from reading, this was a magnificent way to get back again. Sebastian Barry has quickly become one of those authors I just know I can trust, so that there is excitement just holding the book before I even turn page one.

This story is brutal. It reminds us that our nation has not had an easy birth and that it has been baptised in blood more than once along the way. Both the Indian wars and the Civil war are depicted here, and both are told in stark terms that leave no doubt as to the horrors they possessed. But, beneath that, there is the story of the individuals, Thomas McNulty, John Cole and Winona, and those stories are sweet and serve to remind us that men are neither good nor bad sometimes, but often a mixture of the two that is perplexing and mysterious.

I would not give away one word of this plot, since the development of the story and the characters goes hand and hand. There are more than a few surprises and depictions of life’s incongruities, and moments that made me want to gasp aloud but from which I could not turn away.

I must say I could well relate to Thomas McNulty’s thoughts in the passage from which the book takes its name:

Time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending, but something that would go on forever, all rested and stopped in that moment. Hard to say what I mean by that. You look back at all the endless years when you never had that thought. I am doing that now as I write these words in Tennessee. I am thinking of the days without end of my life.

I also remember a time when thoughts of any end had no real meaning at all. It was easy to feel immortal. It is harder at my age. The end lurks too near to be ignored; too many have already preceded me into the next world.
( )

A powerful story, lyrically told. There's a Biblical quality to the book, notably the mythical beginning to McNulty and Cole's relationship, two lost boys who find each other under a hedge, and whose dim awareness of their origins and even their age feeds into the timeliness of the novel's title, Days Without End. Also, the pages are stuffed full of Old Testament references, to Jericho and manna from heaven, adding a religious zeal to the events of the Indian Wars.

Sebastian Barry explores the cruel irony that the oppressed people of Ireland would end up being the oppressors – he references Cromwell explicitly at one point – during this phase of history, with Irish soldiers playing a pivotal role in the near-genocide of American Indian tribes. Barry's descriptions of the attacks on Indian camps are unflinching and brutal.

That said, underlying this picaresque story of early American history, which in style reminded me of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Voyage au bout de la nuit but with a heart, is a love story of epic proportions and also a hymn to America, especially its melting pot beginnings in frontier towns. Sometimes the landscape that Barry conjures up makes me fell like I'm watching a Terrence Malick film. A really stunning book with an emotional ending. ( )

A powerful story, lyrically told. There's a Biblical quality to the book, notably the mythical beginning to McNulty and Cole's relationship, two lost boys who find each other under a hedge, and whose dim awareness of their origins and even their age feeds into the timeliness of the novel's title, Days Without End. Also, the pages are stuffed full of Old Testament references, to Jericho and manna from heaven, adding a religious zeal to the events of the Indian Wars.

Sebastian Barry explores the cruel irony that the oppressed people of Ireland would end up being the oppressors – he references Cromwell explicitly at one point – during this phase of history, with Irish soldiers playing a pivotal role in the near-genocide of American Indian tribes. Barry's descriptions of the attacks on Indian camps are unflinching and brutal.

That said, underlying this picaresque story of early American history, which in style reminded me of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Voyage au bout de la nuit but with a heart, is a love story of epic proportions and also a hymn to America, especially its melting pot beginnings in frontier towns. Sometimes the landscape that Barry conjures up makes me fell like I'm watching a Terrence Malick film. A really stunning book with an emotional ending. ( )

This is a fictional autobiography narrated by Tim McNulty. As a young Irish teen he boards a ship for Canada when his family is wiped out by the potato famine. He meets John Cole of similar age in Missouri where they are perform as women in a minstrel show at lead mining outpost where few women are to be found. Tom and John become devoted lovers. They end up in the US Federal Army fighting first in the Indian Wars in the west. At the close of their time there they acquire a young Native American girl as their daughter, whom they name Winona since they can't pronounce her given name.

They return to performing in minstrel shows in Grand Rapids, MI when the Civil War erupts and the two men re-enter the Federal Army leaving Winona with the owner of the minstrel show.

There are graphic descriptions of war and violence through out the book. There is also a continuing theme of how the disenfranchised in society are used as fodder for hate and war: the freed slaves, the Irish, Native Americans, and homosexuals.

The story ends with an escapade of Tom McNulty to rescue Winona who has been returned to her Native people and their encampment is under attack.

In addition to the war and violence, this is a story of enduring love. The love between Tom & John and their love for their adopted daughter, Winona.

I should add that this is one in a series of books about members of the Irish McNulty family by the author. ( )

Thomas McNulty is a seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant in the 1850s who decides to enlist in the U.S. Army. It's not a first-choice sort of decision, but it's also not like he has a lot of options. His best friend, John Cole, joins up with him, and the two serve as a rock for each other as they are faced with the trials of army life and the viciousness and hardships they must endure. Their lives before the army and after the army are what some might see as unusual, but for Thomas and John, it is what it is. And neither of them would have it any other way.

This is a challenging one to get into as it is written in Thomas's voice, which is rather affected. But once I found myself getting into the groove of the narration and the story, I found that I really enjoyed Sebastian Barry's method of storytelling. The adventures of John and Thomas are interesting (though there are some bleak and some violent moments), and they help illustrate the ideas of love and family--the importance of those concepts and the ways in which they can triumph over even some of the most dire circumstances. ( )

❧ audiobook review

that strange love between us. Like when you fumblin' about in the darkness and you light a lamp, and the light comes up and rescues things. Objects in a room and the face of the man who seem a dug-up treasure to you. John Cole seems a food; bread of Earth. The lamplight touching his eyes and another light answering.

5 HEARTS-IN-MY-EYES STARS for Thomas McNulty, Handsome John Cole, little Winona, and an epic historical fiction novel whose central cast is a gay couple and their adopted daughter.

A man’s memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can’t do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards. I ain’t got no argument with it, just saying it is so.

*faints from prose fangirling*

We knew what to do with nothing. We were at home there.

READ IT. READ IT. READ IT.

Also posted to my blog. ( )

Days Without End is a positively radiant piece of gay Civil War fiction. Barry’s colloquial narrative voice is unlike anything I’ve read. I never would have guessed that in my twenties I’d grow fond of Western stories. Thank you, Conner, for recommending News of the World and now this special duology. ( )

At once charming and disturbing in its frankness, this is the story of 17-year-old Thomas and his friend John, who join the army, experiencing first conflict with native tribes in the west and, then fighting in the Civil War. It is a memorable cast of characters they encounter and variously befriend, alienate and adopt as family through the years. To readers who might shy away from something that sounds like a "war story," give this one a try. It is ultimately a story of friendship, love and family. ( )

I managed to finish off Sebastian Barry's “Days Without End” and then rattled through the sequel “A Thousand Moons” in literally a day and a half. I'm glad I did as these books are, quite simply, brilliant. They follow two friends, Irish emigre Thomas MaCready and John Cole, as they eke their way out of poverty by rather improbably becoming saloon-bar entertainers for a while, and then ending up in the army, fighting firstly in the Indian Wars and then the American Civil War on the Union side. Along the way they adopt an Indian girl, Winona - a survivor of a massacre they were complicit in - and end up settling on a farm in Tennessee with an old army comrade. Winona's story comes to the fore in “A Thousand Moons”.

What did I enjoy? Well, the characters are incredibly compelling - I found MaCready and Cole flawed but quietly heroic. Barry captures the voices of MaCready and Winona - who are the narrators of the two books - brilliantly. The books move along at an incredible pace and are packed with incident. And both portray the savagery and lawlessness of these times with grim authenticity, particularly the daily risks and fragility of life faced by ex-slaves and the Indians. In fact the latter point means that even in the novels' happier times there is always a sense of impending peril which keeps you hooked. ( )