Beyond - Michael Foley

An inexperienced young accountant, just qualified and planning to move to a major metropolis, is temporarily lured by Marie ('an intoxicating cocktail of gaiety, mischief and sensuousness') to a small town in Northern Ireland where he is further bewitched by the atypical Helen. Captivated by two such different but fascinating women, he allows himself to become entangled in various aspects of small town life - its venal businessmen, imperious family women and cynical seducers ('If ye tell women ye're in love they cry and then ye can ride them'). Displaying the characteristics of Michael Foley's earlier novels - style, wit, psychological insight, sharp dialogue and convincing characterisation - Beyond is a tale of young men and women attempting to transcend by means of sexual experimentation their humdrum lives in the Northern Ireland of the sixties, when new ideas began to unsettle the ancient certainties and the generation gap became two centuries wide.