Forever

Title: Forever
Author: Pete Hamill
Pages: 613
Published: 2003

“Departing the shores of Ireland, a young man named Cormac O’Connor sets out on a fateful journey to avenge the deaths of his parents and honor the code of his ancestors. His quest brings him to the settlement of New York, seething with tensions between English and Irish, whites and blacks, British and “Americans,” where he is swept up in a tide of conspiracy and violence. In return for aiding an African shaman who was brought to America in chains, Cormac is given an otherworldly gift: He will live forever – as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan.

So unfolds the story of the intertwined lives of a man and a city. Cormac comes to know all the buried secrets of Manhattan – the way is has been shaped by greed, race, and waves of immigration, by the unleashing of enormous human energies, and ,above all, by hope. Through Cormac’s eyes, we watch the city grow from a tiny community on the top of an untamed wilderness to become the thriving metropolis of the present day.

A writer, a painter, and a man of sensual appetites, Cormac is most of all a man of his times. He is an insurrectionist, abetting a slave revolt in the early days of the colony. He is a revolutionary, taking up arms in the war of independence. He is an activist, taking up a pen to bear witness to social injustice. And he is a chronicler of Manhattan, from its triumphs to its greatest catastrophe.

Through it all, Cormac must fight, generation after generation, a force of evil that returns relentlessly in the scions of a single family. It is a family whose path first crossed his in Ireland and whose persistence puts at risk all his hopes for fulfilling his destiny. As he searches out these blood enemies, he must watch everyone he touches slip away: the men at whose side he as fought, the friends he has treasured, the women he has loved. And so he seeks the one who can change his fate, the mysterious dark lady who alone can free him from the blessing the curse of his long life.”

Forever is a historical novel that traces the life of the narrator, Cormac O’Connor, from the 1700s outside of Belfast, Ireland to the fall of the Twin Towers in New York City. It’s beautifully written – descriptive and vivid in a way that you can feel, see, smell, touch, and taste New York City. And Hamill weaves history and fiction in such a wonderful way that I immediately devoured the first 400 pages of this 600+ plus novel.

But then there’s a break in the flow as Cormac’s story jumps from American Revolution to the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. And then – only a mere forty pages later – Cormac is pointing out the absurdity of the Y2K anxieties. The break stuck with me even after the story returned to it’s previous perfect flow and I was unable to let it do.

I loved how Hamill presented New York as a living, breathing person rather than a place, especially since there is now where in the world like Manhattan. The first one hundred pages are about Ireland and Cormac’s Celtic roots, but Hamill intertwines the Irish into New York in the same manner as they did as immigrants – slowly, but surely.

Living forever means Cormac interacts with so many historical and famous characters – Washington, Boss Tweed – and throws himself into famous moments in New York City and American history – the American Revolution, the race between Hearst and Pulitzer, 9/11. And, as a forewarning, Cormac living forever also means he spends most of his life obsessing over and avenging his parents’ deaths.

I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, but I don’t think it completely detracts from the novel like the time jump does. Ignore the last eleven sentences of Forever and you’ll possibly avoid the disappointment.

Still, Forever is a vivid, unique story that portrays an extremely unique city in a spectacular way. It’s not without it’s disappointments but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating: 4
Balance of Opinion: Dog Ear Diary, Reading Matters