Highly recommended, November 27, 1999
Reviewer: Emer Martin, from New York
The Elysium testament is a great book. Instantly compelling and disturbing. It is the story of Nina; a difficult highly complex middle aged woman whose life is disturbed by the birth of a son, Roland. Nina is such a fascinating refreshing character that she defies all cliches. Her childhood was fraught by the death of her mother; the distance of her twin, and a loving but obsessed father who drives her to be a swimming champion. She is not a particularly warm and loving mother, she questions the very act of childbirth itself, and the sacrifices of Motherhood that women are meant to mutely accept as their lot.

Throughout the narrative she admits to physically abusing her son, beating and pinching him. Her daughter Elinore knows this but heartbreakingly her only response is to write letters to a magazine agony aunt, which she can't bear to send. Nina's husband Neil, a dentist, is having an affair with his dental assistant and prefers to keep out of the way. He is unable to deal with his own family life. Their lives slowly unravel as Roland creates altars in their atheist middle class modern Irish home and proceeds to levitate, at the supermarket, at a party, and in his bedroom. One of the most extraordinary things about this book is its portrayal of the ordinary middle class Irish family, which has often been ignored in modern Irish fiction or dismissed entirely. Despite the sadness of the book the writing sparkles with intense wit and Nina is extremely funny in her biting observations. I laughed outloud at the line, "Perhaps at some dinner-party, it will break the odious recitation of Junior and Leaving certificate results with which parents in the middle years like to sodomise one another."

Mary O' Donnell's writing is clear and luminous. In the beginning she says "Relax. I'm not about to lay bare a series of grievances, turn my life over like a tongue of riddled wood and reveal lice in the form of yet more hurts. But I want to tell you..." And so she does tell us, a startling story of modern day saints, psychiatrists, twins real and imagined. The double is always a theme here. The split self, the damaged self and ultimately and triumphantly, the transcendent self. Highly recommended.

The God Squad was originated in Ireland by Raven Arts Press in 1989, and published by Corgi(London) in 1990. It has remained in print ever since.

Paddy Doyle was born in Wexford in 1951 and now lives in Dublin. He is married with three grown up sons. He is recognised as a leading disability activist in Ireland and has been a member of the government-appointed Commission of the Status of People with Disabilities.

A frequent contributor to television, radio and the print media on matters as diverse as the role of the church in caring for children to the legalisation of marijuana for medical use, he is currently Chief Executive of the National Representative Council - a body established to ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are upheld. He has also travelled extensively throughout Europe and the United States, speaking at conferences about disability and child sexual abuse.

Paddy Doyle received the Christy Brown Award for Literature, in1984, for a television play entitled Why do I Bother. Shortly after it was first published, The God Squad became a bestselling book in both Ireland and the United Kingdom. It also won the Sunday Tribune Arts Award for Literature. In 1993 Paddy Doyle was awarded a Person of the Year Award for An Outstanding Contribution to Irish Society by the Rehab Group.

Book Description
A child's triumph over adversity.

Synopsis
His mother died of cancer in 1955. His father commited suicide shortly thereafter. Paddy Doyle was sentenced to an Irish district court to be detained in an industrial school for 11 years. He was four years old. This title is a testament of the institutionalized Ireland of only 25 years ago, as seen through the bewildered eyes of a child. During his detention, Paddy was viciously assaulted and sexually abused by his religious custodians, and within three years his experiences began to result in physical manifestations of trauma. He was taken one night to hospital and left there, never to see his custodians again. So began his long round of hospitals, mainly in the company of old dying men, while doctors tried to diagnose his condition. This period of his life, during which he was a constant witness to death, culminating in brain surgery at the age of 10 - by which time he had become permanently disabled. This title is the true story of a survivor, told with a lack of bitterness for one so shockingly and shamefully treated. In Paddy Doyle's own words: "It is about society's abdication of responsibility to a child. The fact that I was that child, and that the book is about my life, is largely irrelevant. The probability is that there were, and still are, thousands of 'me's'".

‘‘This will lie around for a few years and then be declared a Modern Classic.’’ Amazon.co.uk reader

‘‘a passionate, erotic, mature novel.’’ Ronan Sheehan

‘‘stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best Irish fiction of the last few years.’’ Colin Lacey, The Irish Voice, New York

‘‘It’s a book I’ve read now three or four times, and it has that really magnificent quality that great novels have, where you find yourself thinking about them a few weeks after you finish reading them.’’ Joseph O’Connor

‘‘An Irish love story for the 1990s.’’ Anthony Glavin