Eureka Street (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Robert McLiam Wilson |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Secker & Warburg (UK) Arcade (US) |
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Publication date
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1996 (UK) 1997 (US) |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | |
Eureka Street is a novel by Northern Irish author Robert McLiam Wilson, published in 1996 in the UK (1997 in the US), it focuses on the lives of two Belfast friends, one Catholic and one Protestant, shortly before and after the IRA ceasefires in 1994. A BBC TV adaptation of Eureka Street was broadcast in 1999.
Eureka Street concerns two working-class Belfast men who, despite being Catholic and Protestant respectively, are friends. The novel switches back and forth between Chuckie Lurgan's third-person narrative and Jake Johnson's first-person narrative. United by their inability to form mature relationships, they struggle to find love and stability in bomb-torn Belfast. The book is set in 1990s, amid peace negotiations and possible cease-fires. In a 1999 interview with Sylvie Mikowski, Wilson said he "wanted to avoid writing a novel in which anyone knew the names of the guns, and I wanted to write about violence responsibly, but in particular what I really wanted to do was to show the weight of a human life lost." The book follows both Jake, the Catholic, and Chuckie, the Protestant, along their lives in Belfast. Towards the end of the book, Both find their lives affected by the 'Fountain Street Bombing'.
Chuckie Lurgan - Second Protagonist (his chapters are narrated in 3rd person). Chuckie is an overweight, thirty-year-old Protestant who has lived his whole life in Belfast. After he celebrates his thirtieth birthday, he realizes that his life has been wasted. Through numerous crazy ideas, he becomes a wealthy entrepreneur. He usually displays shock at his own talent for making money and often acts in ways that, despite his wealth, reveal his poor upbringing. He falls in love with an American woman named Max who becomes pregnant with his child.
Jake Jackson - First Protagonist (also a narrator). Jake is a reformed hard man who lives alone with his cat. Despite his rough exterior and job as a repo-man and a construction worker, Jake is a sensitive romantic who is heart broken after his English girlfriend, Sarah, leaves him. He opens the book with the line "All stories are love stories" (ES 1) and continues, through the novel, to search for love. He has many run-ins with Aoirghe, an extremely Irish freedom-fighter who is under the misconception that Jake had been a victim of police violence. They eventually start dating.
Mary and Paul - A waitress at a bar who goes home with Jake a few times, though she calls it off eventually, stating that she isn't willing to leave her boyfriend, Paul. Paul is the cop that beats up Jake, though he doesn't go beyond roughing Jake up. Jake comments that he admires 'his self-control'.
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