JP Donleavy, author of The Ginger Man, began this posthumously-published novel in 1999, and completed it in 2007, though it is released by Lilliput for the first time this year. A Letter Marked Personal is a strange beast, hanging as it does on a plot device deployed in the very last pages of the book. He is a thoroughly unlikeable character, though Donleavy tries often to gesture towards his moral calibre. Without giving any spoilers, the letter is rather an anti-climax, coming a little out of the blue, and though it reflects on the behaviour of the protagonist, it never fully links with the plot of the book as a whole. The other effect of this promised letter is that it also promises a twist, a sudden reversal that might redeem (or at least explain) the misogyny and amorality of the main character.

Source: The Irish Times November 05, 2019 06:00 UTC