Sheila Armstrong's latest novel, 'The Red Mouth', offers a meditative and exquisitely written exploration of Ireland's extensive boglands and the ancient secrets they hold. The book, her second, follows her acclaimed 2023 debut, 'Falling Animals', and continues her thematic interest in the profound impact of natural discoveries on human lives.
Almost 14% of Ireland is covered by bogs, vast expanses of moss-covered land where centuries of history have been compressed into dark turf. These unique landscapes, famously celebrated by poets like Seamus Heaney for their otherworldly beauty and the perfectly preserved bodies they sometimes yield, form the atmospheric backdrop for Armstrong's narrative.
'The Red Mouth' centres on two pivotal bog discoveries: a "monstrous, bog-black antler" from a great Irish elk and the mutilated remains of a girl, later known as Belroe Woman. From these initial excavations, the novel weaves together the intersecting lives of four characters who are profoundly affected, both literally and figuratively, by these finds and the eerie landscape from which they emerged.
Among the characters is Patch, an émigré recently returned to Ireland, whose profound loneliness is briefly alleviated by a rescue dog that leads him to the ancient antler. Maeve, a socially anxious scientist tasked with environmental assessments of the bog, finds herself grappling with a "seeping dread" and a resigned acceptance of death within its depths. Decades earlier, Tomás, a turf-cutter, struggles to support his young family against the backdrop of encroaching modernisation, while Professor Liam Fleming, an archaeologist, becomes consumed by his obsession with Belroe Woman, a fixation that ultimately defines his career and strains his personal relationships.
A significant preoccupation within the novel is the concept of time itself. Tomás muses on the word "development," questioning whether true development hasn't already occurred over hundreds of thousands of years in the formation of the peat. This tension between the ancient past and the immediate present is central to contemporary discussions on climate change and is a recurring theme in modern climate fiction, prompting readers to consider how to appreciate deep geological time while recognising the urgent challenges of our current era. Armstrong's remarkable prose ensures these complex themes remain engaging rather than abstract, with vivid descriptions of the bog's "quiet green matrices of sphagnum" and the "twisting sherbet sky" above.