I am not usually a fan of the "I see dead people"type of novel, but I was drawn into this one because of the lyrical prose. When Mahoney gets a note that his mother didn't simply abandon him but was the victim of foul play, he returns to the Irish village to investigate. With the help of several quirky characters, he looks for answers and as the story unfolds, we get caught up in the characters and their eccentricities and humor. Part folktale, part love story, part mystery, this is definitely a must read!

A man shows up looking for himself and his story in Mulderrig, where peculiarities, magic and spirits roam freely for those able to glimpse them.
"The dead are drawn to those with shattered hearts.."
With a motley cast of characters actors, Mahoney finds a partner in crime in an old woman, actually a hysterical old bitch who is rich, savvy and not to be messed with. As the story unfolds there's something to be said about the spiritually sensitive and the odd Irish irregularities occurring in the town.
It's the unsuspecting that harbor the most evil, and even allies turn into enemies when push comes to shove in this Irish paranormal, mysterious tale.
This is not a trivial murder mystery/ who done it- its full of prose, suspense, action and humor- you'll fall in love and hate with this dysfunctional pile of scrambled eggs from Mulderrig, and become enchanted in Kidd's melodic and clever writing style.
It's been a long time since I've read a book that has captured me like 'Himself'. Himself is thought provoking and challenging, the language riveting and the characters inspiring.

“I See Dead People......” Not really, but the enigmatic Mahony, protagonist in Jess Kidd’s luminous debut, has been blessed (or cursed) with that ability, and the dead have been following him around his entire life. Abandoned as a baby at an orphanage, and left in the not-so-tender care of Irish nuns in the 1950’s Mahony has been floating through life using his wits and charm to get him what he needs. When a priest tracks him down and hands him a post-card that was left with him at the orphanage (but hidden by a bitter nun), it opens up a whole new adventure that lands him in Mulderrig, a quaint Irish village with a lot of secrets, and people willing to do anything to keep them buried.

With a wonderful cast of characters, both living and dead, a chilling mystery to be solved, and an historic village worth exploring, this novel satisfies on many levels. As one reviewer said, it needs to be read (or listened to) with an Irish accent! Some of the vocabulary and sentence structure was challenging for this American reader, but the enchanting language and the antics of the living and dead kept me entertained and intrigued. The book is structured with chapters written from both the past and the present, which keeps the pace leisurely. Ultimately, it’s a book worth savoring, preferably in a comfy chair, late at night ,and curled up with a cup of Irish Tea…..

The story is about a young man that goes by the name Mahony, who was raised in an orphanage. He was left a letter telling him his true name, where he was from and who his mother was and that she loved him, along with a picture of her holding him and a warning. With this information, he sets out to the small Irish town to find out what more there is to know about his past and that of his parents. Orla Sweeney was his teenage mother and the town tramp so the identity of his father could be one of many. Mahony can be described as a handsome, ladies man in need of a shave, haircut, bath and clean clothes. Together, with several others from the town, they work to unravel the mystery of what happened and where Orla Sweeney is.
This book is one that had me looking forward to some parts and wanting to skim others. The part written about Orla and what happened in the 1950's is a page turner. I read each word with anticipation of what was to come. The part about Mahony and the group of people helping to solve the mystery of his mother in the 1970's was bad. It was like reading a bad story about junior detectives. There are many underdeveloped characters and pointless story lines that do nothing but muddy the story. There were some characters I found likable, most of which were the ghosts that Mahony can see. These ghosts seem to only be there for a distraction from the scene or a little humor...thank goodness for them.

This story about who done what was great. It will keep you on your toes and you won't be able to help yourself from feeling for the MC. The author did a wonderful job creating a living, breathing world for us to fall in love with. The characters were great and felt very real. They were flawed, funny, and so very likable. You won't be able to put this one down. It was a great story with magical realism with some read romance and side plots.

Full of twists and turns this one was awesome!

“So what brought you here?”
I wanted a bit of peace and quiet.
Do you know on the map there’s nothing at all around you?
“It’s the arse end of beyond you’re after then?”
Mahony looks thoughtful.
Do you know? I think it is.
“Well, you found it.”

Hang on to the book tightly. Orla Sweeney’s murder in the prologue will tear your heart out. In May of 1950, an Irish teenage mother from the tiny village of Mulderrig, anxiously waits in the woods for the father of her newborn son to arrive. She hopes to obtain emotional and financial support but when he arrives, she receives a death sentence.

“His first blow: the girl made no noise, her dark eyes widened. She reeled a little as she bent and put the baby down. The man stood waiting…when she was still…he wrapped her in sackcloth…He laid her in a well-made grave…He remembered that he must also claim their child or his work would not be done. [While he had dispatched the mother] the forest had hidden the infant. Great ferns had unfurled all around the child, tree roots had surrounded him, and ivy had sprung up to cloak him..[s]o that…he could not find the child, however hard he searched.”

The child was discovered in the woods and someone from the village mysteriously drove to Dublin, placing him at the front door of the St. Anthony Orphanage cocooned in a basket like baby Moses. His life at St. Anthony’s was smeared by the stigma of his illegitimate birth. Sister Veronica, the bane of his existence, made sure he realized that he was a stain on humanity. He was given the name of Mahony..

There was one ray of sunshine in his life – Sister Mary Margaret. This kindly nun confided to him the true nature of his arrival including the fact that there was a letter with him in the basket; a fact that Sister Veronica rebuked.

Sadly, Sister Mary Margaret died when he was 7. When she appeared before him holding her deadly cancerous tumor in her hands, he would forever have one foot in the world of the living and the dead. This ability to see the dead as they go about their non-corporeal lives plays an important part in Mahony’s life.

Mahony, now 26 years old, is seated at a Dublin pub knocking back a pint when he is approached by a local priest. Sister Veronica has died and a letter in her possession is addressed to Mahoney. “For when the child is grown.”

Inside the envelope was a picture of a girl with a half-smile holding a blurred bundle, high and awkwardly, like found treasure…

Your name is Francis Sweeney. Your mammy was Orla Sweeney. You are from Mulderrig, Co. Mayo. This is a picture of yourself with her. For your information she was the curse of the town, so they took her from you. They all lie, so watch yourself, and know that your mammy loved you.

Pocketing the letter, Mahony heads to Mulderrig to learn what happened to his mother. What made her the curse of the town? Where did they take her? Who brought him to the Dublin orphanage? Who is this ally that warns him about the town?

When the local bus pulls up to a stop in the sleepy-eyed stillness of Mulderrig, its lone passenger, a rakishly handsome Mahony, steps down from the past to turn Mulderrig upside down. His search will shake out long buried secrets, bring threats on his life and endanger those helping him to uncover the truth. Mahony’s complicated search is alternated with a third-person narrator giving the reader Orla Sweeney’s short life story. We learn things that Mahony/Francis will never know.

Prominent characters include – the town constable, Sergeant Jack Brophy, a “strong square wall of a man…[who has a soothing affect] on the mad, the bad and the imaginative…whether off duty or on” – Tadhg Kerrigan, owner of Kerrigan’s pub, the first to greet Mahony and the first to suspect that his visit has something to do with Orla Sweeney – Mrs. Cauley, “an aging actress and brash anarchist” who arrived at the local inn, the Rathmore House, over 20 years ago and never left. She spends her final days harassing the local denizens, and Father Quinn, the local corrupt priest, in particular. She bonds with Mahony and they begin a systematic investigation to determine who was his father! And who was responsible for Orla’s fate.

My favorite character is Mrs. Cauley. She holds her head high despite rapidly declining health and failing looks. There’s a fiery spirit inside the broken body that refuses to give up. She seems to have some paranormal powers. Although she can’t see the spirits, she can sense their presence. She lives to twist the knickers on all the hypocritical and devious residents responsible for making Orla’s life so miserable and turned their backs on her in her time of need.

And as we have seen earlier, the spirits long dead float around Mahony, day and night, like long strands of gossamer. Some engage him directly and others just take up space in the story. There’s Miss Mulhearne, “a picture of respectable Irish womanhood” haunting her old school room and is surprised when she realizes that Mahony can see her. When he learns that she misses what she remembers as poetry, he finds time to join her in the closet and read some to her. Father Jim, the town’s priest and a sympathetic friend of Orla Sweeney, died mysteriously, and now haunts Mrs. Cauley’s commode. And perhaps the most important spirit, the little girl named Ida who witnessed Orla’s burial and was killed as she fled. Her appearances to Mahony provide clues to his mother’s demise.

Lest I have given the impression that the story is leprechauns and scatter brained ghosts, the author has created a malevolent atmosphere throughout the book and there are several scenes of violence and brutality. Woman’s rights advocates will gnash their teeth. Life was pretty rough for women in the 1970s. I know. I was there. But women in this little village suffered a religion and moral backlash that was horrible.

Jess Kidd, as a debut author, has undoubtedly a highly developed creative mind. The story is stuffed with unique characters both living and dead. I can’t shake the image of Mrs. Cauley’s ghostly suitor “drop[ping] his underwear and hopscotch[ing] down the garden path, his bare arse winking in the early morning light.”

Without question Kidd knows County Mayo intimately and her writing style lifts the Irish brogue off the page. When Mahony first walks into Kerrigan’s pub, Tadhg greets him with “All right so?” And Mahony answers, “I’m grand.” She’s a “right eejit altogether.” A word of warning to the delicate, words that are most certainly profane in our culture are natural part of local discourse. Their favorite adjective is f***. Here’s a tamer use of that word with a twist. When Mahony asks the ghostly seven year-old Ida her name, she responds with “how the feck should I know?”

There’s something wobbly about the way the story is crafted. The story feels forced or directed by the author, not dictated by the characters. At times, strangely placed vignettes intrude into an important story line. In one instance, Mahony learns important facts about his mother and while fleshing out the details, the author has Johnnie, Mrs. Cauley’s ghostly womanizer, sitting naked next to him. That was strange enough but the author then has Johnnie stands and “saunters to the nearby flower bed scratching his flute“. The juxtaposition of Johnnies’ itchy flute and Orla’s murdered body was downright weird.

All said, I enjoyed the book. It was grand! Hopefully future works will reduce the number of side stories and useless characters concentrating on deeper coverage of the prime themes. Looking forward to the next book.

I love the cover of this novel, and the premise was very intriguing. However, I was just never able to really connect with the characters or get into the story. The writing style was unique and interesting, but also felt stilted and pretentious. It kept me at a distance from the characters. I was very aware that I was reading a story the whole time. I was never swept away by the experience. I just felt like I was being told a story. A disjointed, strange story that seemed to focus a lot on the grit and dirt of these people's lives for no particular good reason. The supernatural aspect also became increasingly distracting the more it went unexplained. I thought, going in, that the supernatural aspect would be more integral to the plot, and better explained. I'm glad I picked this one up to see what it was all about, and I'm sorry I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

Told in 3rd person, Himself is a book about a young man trying to find out what happened to his mother in a small village in Ireland. With supernatural, mystery and crime woven into the book, Himself is a book that will suck you in and not let you out until you finish it.

I was truly surprised at how much I liked this book. I couldn’t get enough of it and found myself reading it while waiting for my kids bus, while cooking supper, eating supper and at night in bed. It was literally book crack for me. I couldn’t get enough of Mahony’s story and of all the other secondary plotlines going on.

I really liked Mahony and definitely felt for him while he was searching for answers for what happened to Orla and who his father was. He had so much opposition but also had so much help, if that makes sense.

The mystery of who killed Orla was a true mystery to the end. The author did a great job at hiding his identity. It was only when the dog was killed and then showed up by the killer’s side was I clued in. Well that and the other two murders in the village.

I loved the supernatural elements of the book. The ghosts, the storm, the pagan stream in the priest’s house (which was ironic and funny to me), just added more depth to the book. I like that the ghosts were not who they were in real life and they kept their secrets as well as they did when they were alive.

What I really liked about this book was that not all the storylines were resolved in a way that was satisfactory or not at all. One storyline, I do think I figured out who it was ( read the book if you want to know what I am talking about….haha).

How many stars will I give Himself: 5

Why: A great book that had so many layers to it, it resembled an onion in my mind. Once I peeled one layer back, another one appeared. The characters were multi dimensional (hence the layers) and the storylines were not all happily resolved.

Will I reread: Yes

Will I recommend to family and friends: Yes

Age range: Older teen (16+)

Why: Violence

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

After the death of one of his carers, an orphaned child learns that a photograph was left on the doorstep along with him in 1950. In a tiny village in Ireland, 26-year-old Mahoney blows into town with his tight pants and long hair. He' is on a mission to find out what happened to his mother. Laugh-out-loud funny, this story has all the charm of an Irish folk tale - including the brassy bits. But, beware: It's also a gripping, dark mystery. Did I mention the ghosts?

What a fantastic book! A dark, comical, murder mystery which had me hooked from the first few pages. I gobbled it up and would highly recommend it. Congratulations Jess Kidd - This is definitely a winner in my eyes and I look forward to your next book!!

When I read the reviews, I anticipated reading a humorous book. On one occasion, I found it so. I was unprepared for the darkness, the violence. And ghosts were everywhere. A prescription for a gag reflex, surely. But, no.

The author fearlessly seduced the reader through her deep love of words, a respect for her own characters and thereby, for the reader. I put myself in the author's hands, offered myself up to a debut writer whose integrity I respected.

It would have been so easy to kill this murder mystery, to go over the edge with the characters. This book, which could have been a cliche, felt too real to be laughable. I was stunned by the words, the images, even when they were harsh. This book, for me, was about a debut author's skill at balancing while unfolding an unreal story so real I could not put it down.

This is an unusual mystery, set in rural Ireland, that is a mix of great story telling with Irish humor, the supernatural, folklore and long held secrets.. Included are an amazing cast of characters with a "twists and turns" ending. A fun read.

For the dead are always close by in a life like Mahoney’s. The dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales, which the dead just yearn to fill. For the dead have secondhand stories to share with you, if you’d only let them get a foot in the door.

Mahoney, a handsome Dublin drifter, goes back to his hometown of Mulderrig to discover the long-buried secret of his origins. The townspeople believe his mother left him in an orphanage and then was never heard from again. Did she disappear and start a new life, or was she, as Mahoney suspects, murdered? All he has to go on is a photograph of him and his mother with a few short sentences written on the back.

Himself is an Irish Spoon River Anthology with ethereal descriptions and supernatural interventions. It’s charmingly rural, replete with folklore and eccentric characters, but also eerie with disquiet. My favorite character was Mrs. Cauley, described as a looking like a benign, geriatric spider, boarding in a house among toppling towers of books and old sheet music. She’s tart, but benevolent, and she can drink Mahoney under the table. She takes up Mahoney’s cause to solve the questions of his mother’s disappearance, and her money and chutzpah are just the motivation Mahoney needs. She knows that the ghost of her first love is lurking around. He often loiters in her hydrangeas while she sits in her garden plotting with Mahoney.

I was drawn to this book because of the Irish setting and the endorsement of M. L. Stedman (A Light Between Oceans). Several elements keep this book from being the usual hum-drum mystery: the gothic Irish setting, where the town itself is a living, breathing thing; the peculiar, enigmatic, and often hilarious townspeople that you get to know as well as your own kooky great aunt; and the fact that the dead of Mulderrig are also skulking around, visible only to Mahoney, indulging in their vices and prey to their temptations, even in their spectral forms. The writing in Himself is exceptional. It's rare to encounter such rich, apt characterization or creation of such foreboding atmosphere. There’s a ghost of a little girl whose tinny voice taunts Mahoney, the incessant drum of the bees who murmur about impending storms, and the trees who “hold their own counsel” and dig their taproots deep. They all portend murder as the answer to the mystery of Mahoney’s mother, with more murder to come.

4 stars for the story, 500 stars for the writing. As soon as I picked this one up, I dropped everything else I was reading. It will grab you from the first sentence and won’t let go.

Himself will be published on March 21, 2017. Many thanks to Netgalley, Atria Books, and Jess Kidd for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Debut Author who will blow you away!!
Vivid descriptions like few authors use!
Town of Mulderrig is a place I'd like to visit. I love the description of a library being a literary labyrinth.

I started reading and could not stop until I was done, reading it all in one day!! I will be looking for more by this author.

A unusual story with Irish folklore,twists and turns,humor,mystery.
Mahoney was an interesting intriguing character.

Mahony returns to a town in County Mayo, Ireland, where he was born to find out more about his mother who had been murdered when he was a baby. A wonderful combination of murder, mystery, magic, humour and beautiful writing.

What an absolutely wonderful story! A tale of Ireland, magic, secrets and murder!

Mahony and Mrs. Cauley are a delight as they join forces to dig into the past and expose some pretty juicy secrets as well as what happened to Mahony's mother and just who is his father.

In this tale the dead are as active as the living and as the dead tend to be, they aren't always dependable, but they can stir things up or point one in the right direction.

I laughed, I cried and I loved this story! The lush descriptions of the land and the characters was perfect. A real joy to read!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this book.

The upright citizens of Mulderrig in County Mayo, Ireland, considered young Orla Sweeney to be a curse on their town, so when she and her illegitimate infant son disappeared one day in 1950, they were happy and relieved to accept that she had boarded a bus to Ennismore, and asked no further questions. Twenty-five years later, Orla’s son Mahoney arrives in the town, resurrecting the ghosts of the past – sometimes literally. Aided by the aged, trouble-loving, larger-than-life Mrs. Cauley, and by his own remarkable charm, Mahoney dedicates himself to discovering the truth about his mother. His quest brings upheaval to the whole town, leaving some residents convinced that Mahoney must be stopped at any cost.

Although it’s the puzzle of Orla Sweeney’s fate that lies at the heart of the novel, there’s much more to Himself than a mystery. I loved the lyrical poetry of the narrative, the unexpected bits of magic, and the wild veering between the hilarity of everyday life and the darkness of the human heart. Recommend this to fans of irreverent humor and of magical realism, and to any reader ready for a wild ride through a well-crafted and addictive story.