The Fall of Light
By Niall Williams
Warner, $24.95
ISBN 0446528404

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A lyrical tale of a family on the run

"In an autumn long ago, the Foleys crossed the country into the west like the wind that heralds winter." So opens Niall Williams' beautiful novel, The Fall of Light, with Francis Foley on the run across Ireland, accompanied by his four sons, none of them yet out of their teens. More victim than malefactor in a nation that broods under British domination, Francis is a lawless figure in a land where the laws are not of his countrymen's making. The catalyst for his rebellion is a telescope, a massive brass and wood contraption that Francis has no right to touch. Once he does, the telescope becomes his passage to the stars, bestowing a thirst for independence that alters the Foleys' lives forever.

A poorly paid Irish gardener on the estate of an absentee British landlord, Francis is on a clandestine tour of the unoccupied house when he spies the telescope. At the moment he touches it, he feels his life change. To view the constellations is a marvelous thing, suggestive of endless possibilities, the antithesis of his family's earthly bondage: there are no landlords among the stars. Francis steals the telescope, sets fire to his Lord's library and flees with his sons, all fugitives with a price on their heads, destined to travel far beyond their wildest dreams.

On the flooded banks of the river Shannon, father and sons are separated in an attempted crossing. Francis becomes a wanderer, searching for his boys. The sons -- Teige with his magical gift for horses, Tomas and Finbar with their love of women and Finan with his unexpected violence -- assume they are fatherless and make lives for themselves as best they can. In the end, though the entire family is never reunited, that light of grace for which they paid so high a price comes to them.

With its wanderings, burdens and blessings, the epic of the Foleys serves as a parallel to the history of Ireland and sings with the indomitable spirit of the Irish people. Without anger or apology, in a voice as assured and lyrical as an ancient bard, Niall Williams makes us a gift of this magical tribute to human dignity, the bonds of kinship and the unquenchable flame of hope.

Mary Garrett reads and writes in Middle Tennessee.