Beyond the Horizon

By Ryan Ireland

For fans of Philipp Meyer, Patrick DeWitt and Cormac McCarthy

A truly unique and completely original new voice in contemporary fiction

FANTASTIC PRAISE: ‘Mythical, dangerous and deeply unsettling’ Shortlist; ‘A barbaric vision of the West’ Library Journal; ‘A page-turner and an adventure story’ Los Angeles Review of Books; ‘Intellectual in theme, literary in execution: think Gabriel García Márquez reimagining Little Big Man’ Kirkus Reviews; ‘Mysterious and exciting’ Ron Hansen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Release date: Apr 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780745985

Reviews for Beyond the Horizon

[et.carole · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ireland innovates in this book. His use of common nouns instead of proper names works well with the winding plot he uses, as does the gradual way he introduces his characters' capacity for regeneration. Reducing them to "man," "boy," etc. in a manner almost reminiscent of allegory allows him to give his characters a more flexible identity, a better ability to represent human desires and impulses, and an ability to fit into the Western setting he creates, where named characters would bring in tropes and the confusion of individuality.
Because Beyond the Horizon confronts brutally and repeatedly the actions men will take for their own survival, the repeated graphic violence cannot be said to be gratuitous; it illustrates the brutality of man in a way that would otherwise be impossible. That said, as a reader, it was an outright attack on my sensibilities of what is appropriate in a work of fiction and necessary for a plot; I was forced to reconsider the extent to which we must look at our horrors to understand them. If the story were told in a more conventional way, the brutality would not be acceptable, but because his men and strangers stand as representatives, the actions can be examined independently and more usefully than they would be if they could be tallied to the eternal score of a specific man, fictional or otherwise.
Ireland's use of woven timeline is impeccable; throughout the hundreds of quick scene changes in this book, I was only confused twice briefly about which character he was following. His revelation of what happened to the man as a child serves as a useful contrast to the man's current actions even as it exposes the background that could have prepared him to perpetuate horrors.
The strengths of this book as a study in human motivation and cruelty leave it somewhat ambiguous in terms of the mechanization of time travel. The stranger and Indian's ability to be regenerated is never within their or the reader's understanding, which gives the book a fatalist mood. This acceptance of time travel was refreshing, however, and dispensing with the practicality of being reborn into a prehistoric world allows Ireland to describe physical suffering and experience vividly, and unexpectedly, in the unknowing way in which we experience those things ourselves. The lack of omnipotence in a world so alien to our own was entirely necessary and almost in itself satisfying.
Beyond the Horizon does give a rather one-ended perspective on time, however; certain characters frequently have knowledge of the modern world and how the geography they travel will fit into it, although none of the characters is shown to exist after what happens in the novel, and all time-jumps are to pre-narrative moments. I can only speculate that this is the gap into which a sequel will be built.