The Law of Dreams

“
The Law of Dreams
is an artfully woven tale of mythic
scope brought to vibrant life through the author's unique perspective and craft,
and through the complex and morally heroic character of Fergus O'Brien.”

— Governor General's Literary Award Jury

“This is a top-notch historical novel: dramatic, wincingly
violent, tender and extremely well-written.”

—
Guardian

“[Behrens's] prose style is elegant, often poetic, in
contrast to the unforgiving and violent world Fergus inhabits.”

—
Quill & Quire

“A lengthy yet surprisingly fast-moving story,
The Law of
Dreams
is sure to establish this Canadian writer as a serious literary talent .
. . Behrens' use of crisp dialogue clearly conveys the fear, the longing and the
unbridled hope of a young man teetering on the brink between starvation and salvation.
But it is in his economical narrative that Behrens truly shines.”

—
Winnipeg Free Press

“Behrens has fashioned a paean to the strength of the human
spirit that illuminates a piece of history . . . absorbing historical
fiction.”

—
Booklist

“If the novel were judged solely on the language, precise and
poetic in a way that cuts into the heart like a razor, no one could deny Behrens'
brilliance. But for those readers sometimes left a little cold by the technical
virtuosity of lyrical Canadian novelists like Anne Michaels or Michael Ondaatje,
it's worth pointing out that Behrens can also spin a wild yarn.
The Law of
Dreams
is a novel with as much craft as art, an adventure tale as epic and
gripping as a modern Dickens.”

—
Montreal Mirror

“Stunningly lyric . . . a work of richly empathetic imagination
that reminds us once again of how powerful historical fiction can be in skilled
hands.”

—
LA Times

“In scope and subject, Behrens's work recalls Liam
O'Flaherty's epic novel
Famine
. . . but Behrens's language
also has a visceral rhythm, and his similes meld the humble with the lyrical.”

—
The New Yorker

“In the vividly imagined life of Fergus O'Brien . . .
Peter Behrens tells a story that has to resonate with North American readers, no matter
how their ancestors came to these shores.”

—
Toronto Star

“Behrens' use of language can transform how you see things
. . . a thrilling novel that draws you back again and again.”

—
Courier Mail
(Brisbane, Australia)

“[T]here is much in Peter Behrens's
The Law of
Dreams
to excite admiration . . . including richness of invention, elegance and
surprise in the writing, and sharp and forceful dialogue.”

—
Literary Review of Canada

“This book is a beautifully written, poetically inspired tale of
heroism, love, yes and sex, and the triumph of the human spirit over murderous greed.
It's a long road that Behrens makes shorter with many a surprising turn.
The
Law of Dreams
is one great book.”

— Malachy McCourt, author of
A Monk Swimming

“Behrens has fashioned a beautiful idiom for his book, studded
with slippery archaisms and mournful, musical refrains.”

—
Newsday

“This is the novel as experience, a book to be lived.”

—
Canadian Literature

“Peter Behrens' debut novel about ‘the great
hunger' [evokes] the great concluding line of WB Yeats' epic poem,
‘Easter 1916': ‘A terrible beauty is born.'”

—
USA Today

A Novel

P
ETER
B
EHRENS

The author thanks the Blue Mountain Colony, the Canada Council
for
the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia
Center for
Creative Arts, and Yaddo for their generous support.
He also thanks Anne
McClintock, without whose help this book would
not have been written, and Sarah
Burnes, who never gives up.
Beannacht
.

Copyright © 2006 Peter Behrens

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other
means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in
electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions.
We appreciate your support of the author's rights.

This edition published in 2011 by
House of Anansi Press
Inc.
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801
Toronto,
ON
,
M
5
V
2
K
4
Tel. 416-363-4343
Fax
416-363-1017
www.anansi.ca

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Behrens, Peter, 1954–
The law of dreams : a novel / Peter
Behrens.
eISBN
978-0-88784-885-8
1
. Ireland — History — Famine, 1845-1852
— Fiction. I. Title.
PS8553.E37L39
2006     C813'.54     C2006-902811-7

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing
program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the
Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For Basha Burwell

Again, traveler, you have come a long way led by that star.
But
the kingdom of the wish is at the other end of the night.
May you fare well,
compañero; let us journey together joyfully,
Living on catastrophe, eating the
pure light.

Thomas McGrath, “Epitaph”

Éist le fuaim na habhainn, mar gheobhiadh tú
bradán.
If you want to catch a salmon, listen to the river.

ALONG THE SCARIFF ROAD
, heading northeast toward home,
Farmer Carmichael rides his old red mare Sally through the wreck of Ireland. The cabins
are roofless, abandoned. He encounters an ejected family at a crossroads and hands the
woman a penny, for which she blesses him, while her children stare and her man, a hulk,
squats on the grassy verge, head sunk between his knees.

Saddle creaking, still four miles from his farm, Carmichael rides along a
straight, well-made highway, the pressure of changing weather popping in his ears and
the old mare between his legs, solid and alive.

Owen Carmichael is a lean but well-proportioned man. All his parts fit
together admirably. He wears a straw hat tied under his chin with a ribbon, a black coat
weathered purple, and boots that once belonged to his father. His town clothes are in a
snug bundle behind his saddle. Looking up, he sees clouds skirl the sky, but along the
road the air is mild, with a slight breeze out of the west, and he has not been rained
upon since he started this morning. He often watches the sky. It provides a vision of
cleanliness, of possibility, of eternal peace.

Sensing a flicker in the mare's pace, he lowers his gaze. Studying
ahead, he sees a pile of rags humped in the middle of the road.

The mare gets the stink first, begins to flare and whinny, then Carmichael
sniffs death, sour and flagrant on the light wind.

He gives her rein and nips her with his heels, pushing the mare into a
steady, purposeful canter. He steers her wide around the pile of flapping rags. There is
a white forearm stiff upright and a fist and a crow perched boldly on the fist. More
birds are hopping furtively in the grassy ditch . . . if he had a whip he would take a
crack at them . . .

Upwind, the stench evaporates. Carmichael halts the mare, swings down.
Clutching reins in one hand, he bends to pick up a stone. He takes aim and fires at the
crow but the missile flies past its target, clatters on the metaled road. The bird
hesitates then beats up into the air, cawing lazily, circling the corpse, and
Carmichael.

Depressed, anxious, he remounts and continues homeward.

He has been to Ennis to see the agent who manages the affairs of his
landlord, the sixth earl. Remembering the interview causes Carmichael's back to
stiffen. He hates it all — the pettifogged transaction of legal business, the
rites of tenantry, the paying of rent, the dead smell of ink.

He himself is a man for the country, for the scent of a field and the
promising sky. He has the hands for the red mare, a strong-willed creature. He paid too
much for her, twenty-five pounds, but it was long ago, and he has forgiven himself the
debt.

He had been glad to get clear of Ennis, those awful streets pimpled with
beggars. Wild men and listless women sheltered beneath every stable overhang, the women
clutching infants that looked raw, fresh-peeled.

The fifth earl's sudden death, in Italy, of cholera, had revealed
encumbrance and disarray, legacy of a profligate life. Now the affairs of the infant
heir are being reorganized on extreme businesslike principles.

“Meat not corn. Beef and mutton is what does pay,” the agent
had explained. “That mountainy portion of yours — sheep will do nicely up
there.”

Flocks of sheep and herds of Scotch cattle were being imported.

“I have sixteen tenant families living up there,” Carmichael
protested.

“Too many. Can't be work for all of them.”

“There isn't,” Carmichael admitted.

“Get rid of 'em,” the agent said briskly.
“Ejection. That portion ought to be grazed. You'll have to graze, indeed, if
you expect to meet your rent. Whatever sort of arrangement you have with them, it gives
no right, no tenancy. You don't
require the hands but two or
three weeks in the year. You can get hands at wages and not have them settle.
You'll have to move them off.”

Carmichael has spent his life watching, coaxing mountainy people, and he
knows them. The peasants are peaceful, in fact sluggish, if only they have their patch,
their snug cabin, their turf fire. They breed like rabbits and content themselves with
very little, but if you touch their land, attempt to turn them out, they get frantic and
wild.

“If I throw them off they'll starve.”

“And if there's blight they will starve anyway, sir! The only
difference being, you shall starve with 'em, for you'll be paying the poor
rates on every blessed head! No, no, rid yourself of the encumbrance. There's a
military in this country, thank the Lord. If you've whiteboy troubles we'll
set a pack of soldiers on them. Sheep, not people, is what you want to fatten. Mutton is
worth hard money. Mutton is wanted, mutton is short. Of Irishmen there's an
exceeding surplus.”