Description
All of us know, deep down, that life is not a dream. Like some crude monster in the daylight, reality is sustained by our disbelief in it. Maybe this is why not much seems to change, not really.
Ever feel you have a totally different sense of time?
What’s the most terrible, outrageous thing you can imagine?
Remember I told you about the lonely thing?
“Levitation is an up-to-date haunted book, its mushrooming stories sprouting not just from the compost of Joyce. The mysterious sheep-like creature in the fog of the Hallionstories has a flavour of Carroll, and Valentine Rice from the title story, Levitation, drinks in a pub called Crusoe’s. Rice, like many of the characters in this book, is a castaway and Defoe, one of the fathers of modern fiction who lied and spent time in prison, was, like O’Reilly, in the business of transformations. Levitation flies on the wind of the best of fiction, and, as I read down the tunnels and around the warrens of Levitation, I keep thinking of this passage from Ulysses: ‘Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.’”
Martina Evans, The Irish Times“The slippery coating to everything in Levitation makes for an uncommon reading experience but one that you must buy into wholesale. It cannot be read passively, and asks that you suspend certain thought patterns. O’Reilly has spoken of his desire for a story to open dialogue with the reader. This will only happen if the reader is prepared to adjust their aperture and depth of field, which some may find too exerting. Those who do, however, will not quickly forget the experience.”
Hilary White, Irish Independent”the stories crackle with life… O’Reilly gets into the heads and under the nails of his characters”
Francesca Comyn, Sunday Business Post
