I will let the book itself introduce you to its subject. Consider these lines from the book’s dust jacket.
“Forty-year-old Kevin Hurley and his twin sister Maureen live on a farm in Ireland with their bedridden ninety-six-year-old father. Kevin is a good, hard-working farmer; Maureen feeds him plenty of potatoes, mustard, and beef, and life goes along quietly. … Their way of life suits Kevin, as sleeping with Maureen suits him. She was the only woman he'd ever slept with. He didn't think about it much; he just knew she'd kept him warm through many a midland winter. … Maureen liked to think about it, though. She said to him, ‘I'll bet the neighbors see me as an old maid and you as a sapless bachelor. Little do they know that there's more heat in this house than in all the other houses of the townland put together.’ … Then Maureen thought she was pregnant — which was indeed a complication. It was evident, Kevin realized, that there'd been no gentleman calling on Maureen, and he'd have to find one quickly — someone both appropriate and willing.”
Who can Kevin and Maureen get to pretend to be the baby’s father? Billy Snoddy, about ten years older than Maureen and whom Maureen knew when she was fifteen, is hired to work on the Hurley farm. He is considered as a possible explanation of Maureen’s pregnancy but is more of a problem to Kevin than a solution. Kevin receives advice about women from his veterinarian friend, Festus O’Flaherty, who has both a wife and a mistress. Because of Festus’s history with women, he is considered as another possible explanation of Maureen being “with child. There are other characters in the book. Another brother and sister pair, Murt and Elizabeth Quane, live on a nearby farm called Larch Lawn. Also, Kevin and Maureen have a younger sister named Concepta.
There is a marriage in the book. The man says that “his blood told him at night that sex with his sister was more ‘natural’ than sex with his wife, but in the morning the intellect would say that the blood led to darkness and death, that only conscience could point the way to light and life.”
There are tragedies in the book. Whether or not they are caused by the incest is a judgement for the reader to make.
It has always seemed to me that only in novels of erotica could a brother and sister live in incest happily ever after. In more mainstream novels, there has always seemed to be one of two possible endings. In some cases, the brother and sister were happy in their love but found that they were not really brother and sister. So, their love could exist without incest being their relationship. In other cases, the incestuous love between brother and sister did not end but tragedy would befall at least one of the two. Now, I have found that those endings are not the only ones possible for brother sister incest in a book.
Foggage is an excellent book. I recommend it.
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