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Janet Slater
posted 17 March 2006

There have been surprisingly few novels set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Those films set during this period were made in the 1990s (Hidden Agenda, In the Name of the Father). With the exception of drama, for example The Wrong Man and The Lieutenant of Innishmore, since the Good Friday Agreement a cultural and political line seems to have been drawn under the Troubles.

It is interesting then that Louise Dean sets her novel in the mid 1970s with the focus on the dirty protest. Following the withdrawal of special category status for IRA prisoners as part of the 'normalisation' policy of the British government in 1976, the prisoners began the blanket protest, refusing to wear prison uniform, which was escalated into the dirty protest (when the prisoners refused to wash, shave or empty chamber pots) in 1978.

The novel explores the effects of the political scene on two parallel lives, that of an English prison officer, John Dunn - serving in the Maze prison - and that of a republican woman Eileen Moran, who is irrevocably bound up in the fight against British rule in Northern Ireland. Although the main protagonists are unaware of it, their separate worlds meet for the reader as the prison officer works in the wing of the prison where Eileen's son, Sean, a member of the IRA on the dirty protest, is held.

The book is well-researched and captures both the mood of the time and the speech and humour of 1970s Belfast. However, the social context and personal trials of the republican strand of the story are far stronger than that of the prison officer who, despite having served in Aden, Cyprus and twice in Northern Ireland as a corporal in the British Army, seems politically naïve when he enlists as a prisoner officer. Dunn is an atheist and a loner, who is used to being told what to do and not having to think for himself - a legacy of spending most of his adult life in the British Army. He is emotionally stunted and thinks it is in the nature of men to be hateful and have thoughts of killing in their youth which die off as they get older - the Human Season of the title. Dean's slow unravelling of the character and personal history of Dunn is cleverly done mirroring the time it would take to get to know a quiet, reticent man. The IRA's campaign of killing prison officers serves to heighten the tension for Dunn and his fellow prison officers, and their siege mentality is well described.

Eileen is reluctantly bound up in political developments in Belfast as are all republicans in the book, including the priest. The funniest dialogue appears in this side of the story. Having fallen asleep in front of The Sound of Music on the television, after Christmas dinner and a few beers, the priest is woken by Eileen's husband, who is almost permanently drunk, and declares that he wants to take the pledge. The priest's weary response is 'And I'm fecking Julie Andrews'. Yet Eileen is, like all the republican women in the book, long suffering. Whilst understanding why the men and boys turn to the IRA, (there are no female IRA members here, though in fact the women political prisoners in Armagh jail joined the men on the blanket protest), their struggle is between love for their sons and knowledge of what their sons' involvement in the political struggle could mean. The women bravely support and protect their men and assist by hiding weapons in prams, delivering small letters orally on prison visits and diverting the police whilst the men escape out of the back door.

This Human Season accurately depicts the lives of people involved with the Troubles during this period and is recommended reading for anyone who wants to revisit this era, brush up on their history or simply enjoy a compelling read. The conditions in the prison during the dirty protests and the brutal treatment of the prisoners are graphically described, as is the real fear of the prisoner officers that they may be next to be killed by the IRA. The humour in adversity is well-judged, but the disappointment is that a rare novel set in this period fails to reflect the proactive role of women involved in the struggle. The contemporary documents and literature of this period written by women did not have a view of women as passive, and this portrayal of women reflects the revisionist trend of seeing them as victims rather than being actively involved in the politics of the time.